CHAPTER XX. 

 Some Noted Ringers. 



Since there has been racing in America there have been 

 occasional ringers that have been detected. Of course, there 

 may have been others that the public wots not of, but the 

 unfortunate ones who were caught at it are held up as hor- 

 rible examples. 



I think that every State that countenances racing 

 should have a law passed making ringing obtaining money 

 by false pretenses and punishable by imprisonment in the 

 penitentiary. Michigan and Virginia already have such 

 a law, and the Legislature of New York last year, at the 

 instance of the State Racing Commission, passed a very 

 drastic and a very admirable anti-ringing bill, making the 

 attempt to ring equally as great an offence as the actual 

 ringing. 



Every year there is at least some suspicion of ringing ; 

 but there have been no notable instances and detections 

 during the past twelve months, with the possible exception 

 of the attempt at Jamaica with the horse Freekman, which 

 was detected in time. I think the idea first came into use 

 with county fairs, where the strange farmer with the rope 

 harness would drive in with his burr-covered, ungroomed 

 old horse and challenge some of the farmers with sleek and 

 glossy animals to a brush for a hundred or more a side. 

 Often these alleged rustics would get their horses in a 

 couple of races and clean up about all that Jasper and Ma 

 had been saving all summer. 



The first case of the kind I ever heard of was a fast 

 trotter belonging to a man named Howland, who lived in 

 the Middle West. He was an ugly brute and there was not 

 the slightest trace of symmetry in his makeup. To look at 

 him one would figure out that he ought to be able to make 

 a mile in about six minutes, if pushed hard with the whip. 



Then this man owned another horse, as pretty as a pic- 

 ture. She was the trimmest looking creature that I ever 

 beheld, and it took a very experienced eye to be able to say 



