110 CANADIAN TURF RECOLLECTIONS 



fund. Though that official declined to accept it, consider- 

 ing the bad luck of the donor, he insisted on it being 

 accepted. Some of his Barrie friends once induced him 

 to buy a trotter and give him to Pat Carney to train. He 

 paid $300 for the promising proposition, and within 

 three months he declared the trainer sent him bills for 

 harness, boots, blankets, shoeing, medicine and other fix- 

 ings for more money than the nag cost. He concluded as 

 he didn't own the railroad he was in, or a bank on the 

 side, the luxury was too costly, and he offered the trainer 

 to toss a coin with him whether he kept the horse and 

 paid the bills or t'other side on. Pat declined the risk. 

 Moberly then settled and gave the horse away. His sud- 

 den disappearance is to this day an unsolved mystery. 

 It is said that he was on the ill-fated train that disap- 

 peared in the terrible Johnstown disaster. It was known 

 he intended travelling in that direction on that particular 

 day, but whether he was one of the scores that perished 

 in that awful flood, has never been revealed, but whatever 

 his fate, no truer friend, no higher principled gentleman 

 ever loved the noble sport. 



Hon. C. I. Douglas, of Oak Ridges, was then one of the 

 "regulars," and also one of the best-known horsemen 

 in Ontario. He bought two hundred acres of land up on 

 the Ridges, a little east of Yonge street, and as he after- 

 wards declared, when a strong east wind blew it would 

 carry twenty acres of his property across the road onto 

 his neighbor's farm, but the same always came back to 

 him when the same strong wind came from the west. He 

 was a warm friend of Anson G. P. Dodge, the son of the 

 New York millionaire, who bought a big estate up at 

 Keswick on Lake Simcoe and si)ent a heap of money on 

 it. Being ambitious to gain a position in the country he 

 took the oath of allegiance and decided to spend any part 

 of $50,000 to get elected a Member of the House of Com- 

 mons. He spent the money and got there. Being anx- 

 ious to help his friend Dodge, Douglas undertook to can- 

 vass his immediate neighborhood and put in a few good 

 words for the Conservative candidate. His opponent was 



