124 CANADIAlSr TURF RECOLLECTIONS 



NETTIE'S TRIUMPH AT LONDON. 



The day that Nettie downed Belle Mahone on the New- 

 market race course, London, I was there, and the boys' 

 wigs lay thicker on the green than on the day after the 

 big fair at Ballinafad. Who got scorched? Why, all the 

 knowing ones, of course. In a word, a few plotters had 

 it worked down to a fine point. Quimby, the pool-seller, 

 with a couple of able assistants, had dropped Belle 

 Mahone in quietly from Michigan, and so sure was the 

 trick that the cunning ones just went around begging the 

 unsophisticated to accept long odds on the result. In 

 the reading room of the Tecumseh House over night a 

 large gathering of turfites had surrounded the pool seller. 

 Representatives from many sections of the province were 

 on hand: Hon. C. I. Douglas, Major Peel, Jack Munro, 

 C. E. Romaine, Joseph Grand, Mr. Cash, Mr. Bookless 

 and a strong delegation from Hamilton, with many others 

 that memory fails to chronicle just at the moment. 



From the opening of the box at 8 p.m., to the drop of 

 its lid at half-past ten, a lively business was done, and 

 from first to last Belle Mahone was a red-hot favorite. 

 The average run of the tickets was Belle, $30 to $40; 

 Mohawk, $15 to $20; Nettie, $3 to $5, and at those low 

 figures the province-bred was slow of sale as ice cream 

 on a January morn. ''Who'll take the old slave at three 

 dollars'?" was Quimby 's incessant appeal to his cus- 

 tomers, and it was mighty hard work to get anybody to 

 respond. ''Yes, Nettie may win if Belle and Mohawk 

 both fall down," said a prominent horseman to the 

 writer, who had expressed a high opinion of the superb 

 condition in which Dick Leary had brought the old mare. 

 Such was the opinion of everybody who had a thought to 

 express about the race. Belle Mahone had been cam- 

 paigning with great success through the Western States 



