Taking Chances Part 14

"'Bless me!' said the good man, 'I fear it would not be seemly for me to'--

"'Oh, that end of it'll be all right, father,' said the trainer. 'If I find I can do anything with the old rogue I'll shoot him into a dash under my own colors, and you won't be entangled with the thing a little bit. It won't cost you anything to let me try him out, and if I find that he'll do I'll get my end of it by putting down-er-uh-well. I won't lose anything anyhow.'

"Well, when he left the kindly man of the cloth he had the permission to see what could be done with old Caspar. "'Let me know how you progress,'

the priest had asked him.

"The trainer seeing a chance to make a killing-and we all vowed ourselves to secrecy about the matter-went to old Caspar. He was a nag-patcher, as I say, from the foot-hills, and the way he applied himself to the reduction of Caspar's inflammations, and to the tonicking up in general of the old beast, was a caution to gra.s.shoppers. And it came about that early morning's work of Caspar's that had surprised us so was no flash in the pan at all. The old 'possum had somehow or another recovered his speed all of a sudden, in addition to a willingness to run, in spite of his infirmities. At the end of two weeks Caspar, as fine a bit of patched-work as you ever saw, was ready. The trainer went over to Cincinnati and told the father so.

"'Well,' inquired the priest.

"'He's going to run in a five-furlong dash day after to-morrow,' said the trainer. 'And he'll walk. It is a copper-riveted cinch-er-uh-I mean, that is, Caspar will win, you see. It'll be write your own ticket, too.

Any price. In fact when the gang sees his name among the entries, they'll think it's a joke.'

"'My son,' said the father, with a certain twinkle lurking in the corner of his eye, 'gaming is a demoralizing pa.s.sion. Nevertheless, if this animal, that came into my possession by such odd chance, possesses sufficient speed to-er'--

"'Oh, that's all right, father,' said the trainer and he bolted for it.

"As the trainer had said to the priest, there was an all-around chuckle the following afternoon when the entry sheets were distributed and it was seen that Caspar was in the five-furlong dash the next day. For a wonder, not a word had got out about the patching job that had been in progress on the old horse, nor about his remarkable work. The stable lads and railbirds who were on kept their heads closed and saved their nickels for the day of Caspar's victory.

"Well, to curl this up some, the field that we confidently expected Caspar to beat was made up of nine rattling good sprinters-one of them was so good that his price opened and closed at 4 to 5 on. Caspar was the rank outsider at 150 to 1. We all got on at that figure, the bookies giving us the laugh at first, and only a few of them wise enough to rub when they suspected that there was something doing. The trainers', railbirds', and stable-boys' money that went in forced the old skate's price down to 75 to 1 at post time. A number of us took small chunks of 100 to 1 in the poolrooms in Cincinnati-wired our commissions over. The old horse favored his left forefoot a trifle in walking around to the starting pole, and that worried us a bit, for he'd been all right on his pin the night before. We didn't do any hedging, however, but stood by to see what was going to happen. All of us, of course, had enough down on him to finish third to pull us out in case he couldn't get the big end of the money.

"It was a romp for Caspar. If I'd tell you the real name of the horse you'd remember the race well. Caspar, with a perfect incompetent of a jockey on his back, jumped off in the lead, and was never headed, winning, pulled double and to a walk, by three lengths. The bookies made all colors of a howl over it, but their howls didn't go. They had to cough. It was the biggest killing that bunch of Latonia trainers, including myself, had ever made, and there wasn't a stable boy on the grounds that didn't have money to cremate for months afterward.

"After the race the trainer who had patched old Caspar up for the hogslaughtering-he was close on to $15,000 to the good, and he didn't have me skinned any, at that-hustled over to the priest's house.

"'Father, the plug made monkeys of 'em,' is the way he announced Caspar's victory.

"'Truly?' said the priest.

"'Monkeys,' repeated the trainer, and then he pulled out a huge new wallet that he had bought on the way to the priest's residence. He handed the wallet to the father. 'When I was here, a couple o' days ago,' said the trainer, looking interestedly out of the window, 'I had along with me a fifty-dollar bill that, feeling pretty prosperous that morning, I intended to hand to you to be distributed among the poor of the parish-used to be an acolyte and serve ma.s.s myself, a good many years ago, when I was a kid. Well, I forgot to pa.s.s you the fifty, you see, and so I invested it in-er-uh-a little matter of speculation, to your account, so that it amounts to-er-uh-well, I understood there's a bit of a mortgage on your church, you know."

"The priest opened the wallet and counted out seven one thousands, one five hundred and one fifty-dollar bill. The trainer had put the $50 down on Caspar for the priest-without the father's sanction or countenance, of course-at 150 to 1.

"'Well,' went on the trainer, anxious to talk so as to save any questions as to the nature of his speculation, 'it certainly would have done your heart good if you could have seen that old nag cantering down the stretch'--

"'It did,' said the father, with a smile. 'It is no sin, I conceive, for even a man of my cloth to watch n.o.ble beasts battling for the supremacy, there being, I take it, nothing cruel in such contests. I saw the race.'

"Old Caspar was wound up by that race. He went to the paddock as sore as a boil, all of his old infirmities breaking out with renewed strength, and he was turned out to gra.s.s and died comfortably two years ago. If he could have known, it might have cheered his declining days to realize that he had paid off the mortgage on a nice little brick and stone edifice of wors.h.i.+p on the outskirts of Cincinnati."

A SEEDY SPORT'S STRING OF HORSES.

_How the Incredulity of a Lot of Bookmakers Was Turned Into Gasping Astonishment._

A mixed party of turf followers in Was.h.i.+ngton for the Bennings meeting, and Was.h.i.+ngton men about town, had a cafe talk the other night about some things that have happened in former years on running tracks, legitimate and outlaw, in this neighborhood.

"When the outlaw track over at Alexander Island, across the Potomac, was running a few years back," said a New York player, "I came down here from the wind-up meeting in New York one fall to see if there was anything in the game in these parts. Then, as now, I was playing, and not laying. So this Alexander Island happening that I'm going to tell you about didn't bother me any, bad as it knocked a lot of the books.

"I got here before the Alexander meeting began. A couple of days before the game was to be on, while I was in the Pennsylvania avenue refreshment headquarters of the boys who came here from New York and other tracks to write the tickets, a seedy-looking chap, who looked as if the elements had conspired to make him smoke a b.u.m pipe in the game of life for a long time previously, walked in and edged around to the back room where the bookies were figuring on the amount of fresh money they were about to begin taking out of the national capital. The tough-looking man had a horsey look and a horsey smell about him, and as soon as I saw him I knew that he followed 'em in some kind of a hanger-on capacity. He walked over to a table where a number of the bookmakers were seated.

"'Say,' said he, leaning his hands on the table and addressing the party in general, 'you people are sports, ain't you?'

"The looks the bookies gave the shabby-looking man were intended to convey to him the idea that they weren't publicly posing as hot tamales, anyhow. The man got no reply.

"'You're going to make books across the way, ain't you?' the up-against-it-looking chap asked, with an inquiring look all around.

"'Well, what if we are?' asked one of the bookies, just for the good-natured sake of breaking the silence.

"'Well,' said the down-at-the-heel sport, 'I've got a couple o' nags that have been running for the past six weeks over at the Maryland outlaw. They haven't been one, two, six in any race over there, and I've gone broke paying entrance fees for 'em. Maybe they'll be able to do better over across the way at Alexander. I want to chuck 'em in a couple over there, anyhow, for luck. But I owe $30 feed bill to the Maryland outlaw people, and I can't get my plugs away from there until the thirty's paid. Now, you people are sports, and so'm I. What I want to know is, will you people cough up the thirty for me as a loan, so's I can get that pair o' mine down here?'

"The bookies listened to the man with gradually increasing smiles, and when he finished they gave him the laugh in chorus.

"'Stop your kidding,' said one of them. 'I can get all the outlaw racehorses I want for $2 a head.'

"They all chipped in with a crack at the doleful-looking sport, who appeared to be rather a guileless sort of chap for a man with a short stable of racers.

"'They're a good pair, all right, and one of 'em's on edge, too,' he persisted. 'He worked six furlongs in 1:21 flat a couple of days ago.'

"The bookies all looked at the man as if he were demented.

"'One twenty-one flat for a six-furlong route!' exclaimed one of them.

'Why, look here, my friend, you're not smoking hard enough to suppose you can win down here with a skate that does well when he works six furlongs in that time, are you? Don't you know that there's a whole bunch over there now that can go that route in 1:16 or better?'

"'Well, they've got a chance, anyhow,' said the shabby man. 'Do I get the $30 to get 'em out o' hock?'

"The bookies all turned their faces the other way, then, and when the man with the pair of hocked nags saw that it wasn't any use he dug his hands into his pockets disconsolately and shambled out.

"On the day that the meeting opened I saw the shabby man in the betting ring. I was behind him when he handed one of the bookies a $5 bet on one of the horses entered in the second race of the day. The bookmaker had belonged to the party that gave the laugh to the shabby man when he asked for the $30.

"'Playing 'em, eh' said the bookie, smiling at the run-down-looking man.

'Couldn't get your pair away from the Maryland outlaw, I suppose.'

"'Yes, I dug up and got 'em out,' said the man. 'They're here now. The one you just gave me a ticket on at $100 to $5 belongs to me.'

"'Oh, is that so?' asked the bookmaker. 'Well, I hope you win. But you've got a couple of 3 to 5 shots to beat, you know.'

"'I got a chance,' was all the man said, walking away.

"I took a look at his horse, the rank outsider in the race, when he went to the post with the others. He was a six-year-old gelding, and he looked rank and broken down. A boy that the shabby man had brought along from the Maryland outlaw was on the horse. It was a mile race, and the horse was twelfth in a field of twelve. I saw the gloomy-looking, shabby man in the paddock after the race superintending the rubbing down of his nag. He seemed to be a whole lot in the dumps.

"The same horse was entered in the fourth race on the next day's card.

It was a field of crack outlaw performers, and his horse was again the extreme outsider at 40 to 1. I saw the shabby man walk around putting down $2 bets here and there on his plug, and I felt sorry for him. The bookies simply smiled commiseratingly at him. The hard-looking man's horse finished ninth in a field of nine.

"'Why don't you cut it out?' asked one of the bookmakers of the man with the tough appearance. 'You're wasting your stake.'