The Driving Clubs of Greater Boston 



141 



couple of weeks previous to the Lexington 

 meeting, and was known to have none too 



g 1 legs. 



And so Mack Mack, later the sole property 

 of George A. Graves, of the Metropolitan 

 Driving Club, was the choice. There was big 

 selling, many of the pools aggregating $1,- 

 500. and on account of the peculiar angles 

 there was plenty of talk. When the horses 

 were being warmed up for the Transylvania, 

 and Nut Boy had finished his final prelimi- 

 nary heat, a friend of McHenry's, who was 

 so close to him he could talk freely on deli- 

 cate subjects without arousing the blazing 

 temper the great driver had, met him just 

 as he came through the gate after dismount- 

 ing from the sulky. 



"They tell me you're going to cheat this 

 afternoon with Nut Boy," was the friend's 

 salutation. 



McHenry's face assumed a look that was 

 half smile and half sneer. Then he pointed 

 to Nut Boy, which was being led to the 

 stable. "There he is," said McHenry, "and 

 he'll win. And let me tell you something 

 more — I won't drive him two hundred yards 

 in the whole race." 



And be didn't, for over a slow track, on a 

 cold day, Nut Boy fairly rambled three heats 

 in 2:08, 2:071-4, 2:09, while Mack Mack's 

 positions were 11, 7, 2, Emboy, a sprinter, 

 getting second money with 2. 3, 9 to bis 

 credit. Nut Boy, over that slow track and 

 on that cold day, equaled his record, and he 

 never was straight. "He was good today," 

 McHenry said after the race, "and I thought 

 he would be. A lot of people have got the 

 idea that horse isn't game, and some others 

 think 2:07 will hold him. Why. he could 

 have beaten 2 :o6 right over this track today, 

 and he was a sure 2 105 trotter, good day and 

 track. 



"Well, Nut Boy is a case of where a rest 

 beat training all to pieces. I saw what went 

 on in the betting for the Transylvania, and I 

 knew what some people figured was coming 

 off, but did not consider it any part of my 

 business to talk about the race before it was 

 trotted. But just the same I thought it was 

 the surest thing in the world that Nut Boy 

 would beat that field. He outclassed every 

 other horse in it so far it was ridiculous to 

 talk about beating him — it was a sure 2 105 

 horse against some 2 :o8 ones." 



During the Winter of 1906-7 Nut Boy ran 

 in a large box stall and yard at the Crabtree 

 Farm, in Neponset. But the forward leg 

 that had bothered him the Fall before was 

 still in such bad shape when the training sea- 

 son came around, that it was thought best to 

 fire and blister the leg and give it a year's 

 rest. In 1908 he was sent to Bob Proctor at 



Readville, but after a little work the leg 

 again showed symptoms of weakness, ami 

 he was sent hack to the farm, where he was 

 allowed to run loose till 1910. 



That year "Lotta" Crabtree advertised a 

 closing-out sale of the live stock at the farm, 

 hut when the day arrived, she refused to 

 have Nut Boy put up for the high dollar. 

 Later, however, P. O'Hearn, afterwards 

 Building Commissioner of Boston under ap- 

 pointment of Mayor Curley, succeeded in 

 buying Nut Boy from "Lotta," and the next 

 few seasons he was the bearcat among the 

 trotters on the Franklin Field Speedway, as 

 he proved his "class" when pitted against 

 rivals from the Dorchester Driving Club. 

 Nut Boy displayed bis immense speed one 

 afternoon in 1912 by trotting a heat in I :oi, 

 which at present (1914) is still the record 

 for all trotters over the Franklin Field course, 

 it having tied the mark made by Ralph 

 Wick, of 1 :oi, on July 8, 191 1. 



Nut Boy was disposed of by Mr. O'Hearn 

 at the Old Glory sale in New York, the Fall 

 of 1913, he passing to the ownership of a 

 Xew York horse dealer called "Big Charley." 



CHAPTER VIII 



K 



Angus Pointer Was Well Crowned 

 "King of All Pacers" 



ING of them all." This was the 

 mantle that by common consent 

 of both horsemen and the great 

 sport-loving public rested on 

 Angus Pointer, 2:01 3-4, the 

 season of 1907. Week after week the fastest 

 pacers in the world tackled him in the free- 

 for-alls in the Grand Circuit from Detroit to 

 Lexington and, outside of the opening meet- 

 ing at Detroit, the story was always the same 

 — Angus Pointer won. 



His record since making his debut at the 

 Canadian ice races in 1904, and turf battles 

 later compared with the best campaigners 

 the world has produced in all the history of 

 light harness horse racing. He bad every 

 quality of a race horse, for not only was his 

 speed' sufficient, but he was the one rare 

 equine that could be relied upon over any 

 sort of a track. It made no difference to 

 him whether it was a two-lapped one, a mile 

 proposition, the footing like a billiard table 

 or deep in mud or sand, he was there with 

 "the goods" when turned for the word. 



Angus Pointer was bred by W. H. 

 Buchanan. Kemptville, Ont, and sired by 

 Sidney Pointer, 2:07 1-4, out of Jane (dam 

 of Annie Sprague, 2:21 1-2), by Grant's 

 Hambletonian. He was owned bv Senator 



