158 



The Driving Clubs of Greater Boston 



talked with Alta in Poughkeepsie, and he 

 told me to go ahead and name the horse. 



The morning of the race, Alta came into 

 the office at Readville. whip in hand — he was 

 there warming up Delmar — and said : 



''Mr. Jewett, repeat the terms on which 

 Delmar is named in this race. As the 

 arrangement was made by telephone, I wish 

 to be sure we understand it alike." 



MAJOR DELMAR, 1:59 3-4 



I repeated the proposition I had made 

 over the wire, and he said, "That is right, and 

 as I understand it," and was turning to go 

 out when I said to him, "You know, Alta, 

 that we are to give a consolation with a 

 purse of $2,000 to horses starting and not 

 winning money in the race today." 



"I shan't want to start in it," he replied. 

 "I'll get money out of this race." 



Yet, I know that the horse would not have 

 started on less liberal terms, but would have 

 been engaged in a purse race instead. Alta 

 and his party won handsomely on the race, 

 and a framed photograph of the check for 

 i is winnings hung as a valued trophy in his 

 i rfice at home. 



CHAPTER 1J 



Inside Facts About the Charley 



Herr-Cresceus Race at Readville 



LIKELY no event created so 

 much criticism at the time, and 

 <s even mentioned to this dav in 

 horse circles, as the stallion race 

 of 1900, for a purse of $20,000, 

 which has gone down into historv as the 

 Charley Herr-Cresceus race. 



I was much surprised, the other day, to 

 find that this event of fourteen years ago the 

 27th of last September, recalled to one spec- 



tator only the impression of a "fixed" race. 

 The bitter nature of the struggle for first 

 money and the stallion championship, in fact, 

 the whole magnitude of the event had left 

 only hazy recollections, the only clearly 

 defined impression remaining was that it was 

 a "fixed" race. 



This man said to me that he had been at 

 Readville a day or two of the Grand Circuit 

 meeting in 1912, not having attended 

 before in many years, and it seemed to him 

 that racing had lost the snap, dash and ex- 

 citement that characterized it in the betting 

 days. It was dull and uninteresting, he 

 thought, and not to be compared with that of 

 former years, although of former times one 

 race had left a bad impression. 



"Most of the racing there," he said, 

 "seemed to me to be on the level, but I re- 

 member seeing one race that I have always 

 thought was fixed all the way through." 



"What race was that?" I asked, "and when 

 was it?" "I don't remember just the race, 

 nor the year, but I remember that a horse 

 called Charley Herr had won two heats and 

 finished ahead in the third, and then the 

 judges gave the heat to a horse called Cres- 

 ceus. Why, T am as sure as I am talking 

 that Charley Herr won that heat — even the 

 band saw it and started playing, 'He Was 

 Bred in Old Kentucky,' before the judges 

 announced it." 



"So you thought the race fixed, and what 

 do you mean by 'fixed' and by whom?" 1 

 asked. 



"Oh, I think it was all framed up by the 

 horsemen, the judges and the track people 

 for the yellow horse to win." 



I really had to laugh. I won't say that 

 races were never "fixed" at Readville, but 

 that the management and the judges they 

 employed had ever been impeached by public 

 opinion in such a matter was news to me. 



I asked him if he knew who the judges of 

 that race were and who the directors of the 

 association were at that time, and he ad- 

 mitted that he did not. So I told him that 

 the judges of the race were the late Col. 

 Henry S. Russell, Mr. William Russell Allen 

 and Mr. Horatio N. Fiain ; listed the directors 

 by starting with Col. John E. Thayer as 

 president, J. Malcolm Eorbes as vice-presi- 

 dent, and so on down through the list. 



This imposing list of names and the further 

 information that no occupant of the judges' 

 or the timers' stands (the one on the outside 

 and the other on the inside of the track) had 

 seen the finish other than as announced 

 served to exonerate the judges and manage- 

 ment from implication in his mind. 



Still, a great many people remain of the 



