The Driving Clubs of Greater Boston 



163 



them on the speedway on several occasions, 

 and who had ridden them at the heads of pa- 

 rades like a regular Napoleon. 



When a committee of the club went to the 

 Mayor and told him that they wanted the 

 speedway extended to a half-mile, he readily 

 agreed that they should have it; and when he 

 visited the speedway one race day with his 

 Board of Park Commissioners and explained 

 to them what was wanted, they objected be- 

 cause of the expense and the amount of land 

 it would take. 



He quietly said, "Mr. Chairman, you under- 

 stand what these boys want. See that they 

 get it." And President Johnson and his com- 

 mittee gave the Tark Board no rest until the 

 work was finished. 



That the club got the extra thousands of 

 dollars to complete this work through the 

 City Government was due again to the assist- 

 ance rendered by Mayor Curley, then Alder- 

 man, Alderman F. J. Brand, a past president 

 of the club, Councillor T. J. Buckley, and Dan 

 McDonald, now chairman of the City Council. 

 and Edward G. Richardson. To these men 

 the horsemen of Dorchester, South Boston, 

 Jamaica Plain, Roxbury and Hyde Park, as 

 well as those that enjoy the races from the 

 side lines each week, owe a lasting debt of 

 gratitude. 



w 



CHAPTER II 



An Amateur Driver in His First 



Professional Race — Trouble 



A-plenty 



HAT were your feelings and 

 how did it seem to you when 

 driving in your first profes- 

 sional horse race?" is a ques- 

 tion that is often asked of me 

 by friends. The same question has probably 

 been put to every amateur driver. "Can you 

 remember how you felt?" is another question 

 asked. 



"Can I remember my first race in a sulky?" 

 Well, I will never forget it, not if I live to be 

 a hundred years old. My first professional 

 race was at" Rockland, Maine, on August 5, 

 1902. The class was a 2:30 trot or pace; 

 purse $250, and the number of horses starting, 

 fourteen, were driven by some of the best- 

 known drivers in Maine at that time. "Hod" 

 Nelson, Ira Woodbury, Jim Kirby, Ed Morri- 

 son, Ira Pottle and Charles Webb were among 

 these drivers. 



I had purchased, the September previous 

 from a party in Ohio, the five-year-old geld- 

 ing, Budweiser, by Bud Crook, that had never 

 seen a race track up to the time that I brought 

 him East. In the opinion of my friends I had 



BUDWEISER, 2:18 1-4 

 Equine Hero of the Rockland (Me.) Race 



