TWENTY-FIRST ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 133 



plained because we didn't have more horses, and I said "After they 

 get away from the rail in the first place, how many of the horses 

 are you watching? It's a battle between two, or once in a while 

 three, but you don't watch more than two at the finish of the race. 

 It is usually a contest between two horses." When I had time I sat 

 down and took the Iowa papers of horse races and looked them over 

 and figured them up, and there was only about 50 per cent of the 

 horses out racing at the time of our fair as there was four weeks 

 ahead of us. The reason was that the fellow that had a horse that 

 wasn't doing good shipped him home. And the thing to consider 

 is if you don't get more money, I'll tell you, you will get left on 

 horses. There aren't but few fairs in Iowa that can't afford to pay 

 four or five hundred dollars in added money, and that is what 

 you have to do to get the races. 



Mr. Duelly : Up along the state line where I live it is a little hard 

 for us to keep in touch with the Iowa fairs. Mason City is our 

 nearest city and it is so much bigger than we are that we cannot 

 hook up with them at all, so that we have to go along wherever we 

 can, and the best co-operation is across the state line in Minnesota, 

 and even then it is sometimes hard, because the Minnesota fairs 

 don't run the same. In 1919 we tried to put on some horses, and 

 just before the fair we had a big rain, and the horsemen didn't want 

 to bring their horses across country on account of the mud, and be- 

 cause we had been advertising horse racing we did everything we 

 could to get horses to come, and succeeded to a certain extent. But 

 when we came to the secretary's office at the end of the races to 

 settle up, we found that they were splitting the money absolutely 

 irrespective of winnings among themselves. We then learned that 

 they had agreed among themselves before coming down there that 

 they would come down and each fellow put in a sort of jack-pot his 

 winnings and draw out so much money, no matter who won. That 

 got noised about and it hurt racing in our fair to such an extent 

 that we didn't have any races at all in 1920. In a way I think that 

 answers Mr. Curtin's question why they would do it. They were 

 not willing to drive across country with their horses when they 

 weren't sure of getting something for their trouble. I can't say that 

 I blame them much, because the roads were muddy and it was an 

 unpleasant trip, and I think it answers his question why they did it — 

 they got together over long distance and fixed it up so that each 

 fellow would get something out of it no matter whether he won first 

 or fourth place. But it hurt our fair, so that we this year didn't 

 ofifer horse racing at all. I will say in their behalf, however, that I 



