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TrotI On the Trot I By MORRIE KURLANSKY iJ iJAll All Nine Choices on Card Beaten Eddie Morgan Drive Two Winners Ohioan Has Large Public Stable MAYWOOD PARK May wood 111 May 3 Favorite players having become well acquainted with the gentlemen behind the May wood Park cash iers windows for the first time in 24 racing nights of the current meeting were spared their almost routine trips as none of the public choices were able to win any of the nine races on Thursj day night Two of the winning outsiders were steered by a husky blond fellow from Ohio 37yearold Edward Morgan By dint of these two victories Eddie moved up in second place in the driver standings Being but one win behind Harry Burright Eddie is liable to take over leadership any night now If he did it wouldnt exactly be a surprise as Eddie is not only one of the Better sulky pilots competing at this meet ¬ ing his intelligent management of a 16 horse public stable is an important factor of the Ohioans success successA A comparative newcomer to the local racing scene Eddie never raced his sta ble here until a year aero He already has acquired a host of followers with his workmanlike job on the race track as testified by his fairly regular appear ¬ ances in the winners circle and his bet terthanaverage percentage of mounts finishing in the money What the fans dont know besides the fact that he is a talented driver who is rarely parked out and lias his horses wellplaced for a late and quite often spectacular stretch charge is that Eddie is an excellent psy ¬ chologist a man who gets along very well with his fellow trainers his owners and whats most important with his caretakers as grooms are usually called in harness racing racingRacing Racing a public stable of about 15 to 20 horses the latter figure Eddies absolute maximum poses the great problem to any trainerdriver no matter how good or out ¬ standing a horseman he may be himself how and where to get good and competent help and to keep them Eddie an articu ¬ late and intelligent man with not more than ordinary high school education has a way with people that simply cant be faulted and the result is expressed in the i consistent success of his public stable for a period of almost 10 seasons To give you an example of what we mean Eddie at present employs six grooms each entrusted with two or sometimes three horses Three of these grooms are Negroes which is in a way uncommon as most stables either have all white help or all Negro grooms Morgans boys he calls them the best on the grounds get along fine with each other and each one virtually works inde ¬ pendently from the other but still they work together in the stables best inter ¬ ests estsMorgan Morgan who is calm and who never raises his voice while determined hardly if ever gives a direct order to any of his hisgrooms grooms Once convinced the man does a good job with his horses he rather asks j them what tthey think should be done or not be done in any given circumstance and actually heeds the advice of his men A fine judge of horseflesh Eddie knows a good man when he sees him and his man ¬ power turnover over the seasons has been negligible An extremely busy man what with starting three or four horses a night training in the morning attending to all the administrative chores of a public stable Morgan manages to fly home to Troy Ohio every week end He takes a plane early Sunday morning and spends the rest of the sabbath and most part of Monday with his family to return in time for Mon ¬ days races racesAs As far as Morgans patrons are con cerned and he usually has about six or eight of them they are what you might call small men no millionaires In fact Morgan doesnt care too much about the very rich people in racing thats why he never accepted a position as a private trainer in spite of some lucrative offers He believes that the small not poor mind you owners are the best His help like this type of owner better too because they usually stake the grooms when one of their horses wins while the millionaires too often if not outright suspicious are unappreciative unappreciativeMorgan Morgan probably would be a very suc ¬ cessful man in thoroughbred racing where the use of claiming races is so much more widespread than in harness racing Eddie can read the condition book and knows how to place his horses where they have a good chance to make a little money His training methods are conventional but he pays a lot of attention to a horses indi ¬ viduality and here he relies heavily on his grooms the men who are around a horse almost 18 out of 24 hours a day dayMorgan Morgan wintertrains at his hometown fairgrounds at Tioy Ohio and claims that the cinder track they have there is marvel ¬ ous and enables him to have his horses ready to win as early as March Money wise Morgan is doing allright as far as trainer incomes go in harness racing es ¬ pecially if a man races a lot at the fairs and smaller parimutuel tracks He tried New York too and was successful at Yon kers but it isnt the place to race for a trainer who has a number of young green horses in his care He thinks his best per ¬ former to date was the pacer My Volo who won many races at Detroit tracks
