FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR ROOK— PART III 259 



Now, there are a number of things that I think would insure 

 better racing. The first thing I woukl suggest is larger purses, 

 better race tracks, good stabling, and competent judges in the 

 stand. Prompt payment of purses, food on the ground at market 

 prices. And there are a great many things that I will not mention. 



In the first place, there is no man that can afford to race a 

 horse for a little, measly .$300. 00 purse and make any money. 

 That is out of the (juestion. Deduct five per cent, entrance fee 

 from this and you earn $120.00. That is a lot of money. $120.00 

 to earn with a horse that has probably cost in the neighborhood 

 of $1,500 to $2,500 to make him so he can earn that much money. 

 Now, there are a lot of fair associations that think they ought to 

 have good racing for nothing. I do not mean to say that they do 

 not want to pay what they agree to. Some of them won't do that 

 even, but there are a lot of them figure that they can not give 

 more than a $250.00 or $300.00 purse. Well, anybody that knows 

 anything about the racing game, that has ever trained horses, or 

 raced horses for a living, knows no man can train a horse and 

 make money out of that kind of racing. The thing they must do 

 if they want to get good horses and have good racing is to offer 

 money enough to induce good men and good horses to come to 

 their race. Then you will get good horses and a better class of 

 men to race them, and your sport will be clean and there is no 

 question but what they will race for the money if the purse is 

 large enough. There are a great many tracks that you go to the 

 county and district fairs, where, when horses start to arrive, they 

 Avill probably get a road grader and' scrape the weeds off, leaving 

 the race track all full of holes. That is a fine thing. And the 

 stables at about four-fifths of the county and district fairs are not 

 fit to put a horse in. As a general thing, horses in training have 

 comfortable quarters, and when they go to the races they are 

 stuck away in some shabby barn crowded full of stalls. Talk 

 about don 't get horses ! I was at a place this year where they had 

 them in a log house. They put a roof over my stable after I got 

 there and I had to coa:s; and beg them not to go away that evening 

 because it looked like rain. You take a horse that has been trained, 

 possibly for four or five months, and stick him away in a barn of 

 that kind, no roof, the battens all off, and no windows, usually 

 in that kind of a place there comes a big rain and it turns cold, 

 and consequently the horse catches cold and he is not in condition 

 to race. The management kicks, the horse has not shown up in 



