AND OTHER SKETCHES 251 



AN EASTERN EQUINE WHICH FAILED TO 

 SCORE. 



He was a big, raw-boned gray gelding ; stood 16 hands 

 iy2 inches high, and would have won a chromo in a com- 

 petition for ugliness, not of temper, but for looks. 



He was bred away down in the Eastern Townships in 

 Quebec, his breeding like that of two-thirds of the trot- 

 ters in the French country thirty years ago being de- 

 cidedly hazy. I heard a half-dozen different horses at 

 various times named as his sire, and he was damned 

 more than a thousand times by those who had backed him 

 in his races. He had won a few times in and around 

 Montreal, and a couple of smart citizens of that burg 

 decided to send him west and scoop in the shekels of the 

 hayseeds. They had timed him miles better than .30, and 

 as he was eligible for the .50 class, they simply counted 

 up their earnings before they left home. 



His Ontario debut was to be at Guelph; that was in 

 the days when ''Billy" Bookless was one of the chief 

 pushers in the Royal City, and when its race meetings 

 were especially popular. It was the first day of the 

 meeting, and Major Peel, C. I. Douglas and the writer 

 were standing outside the ''Royal" looking over the list 

 of entries as they appeared on the programme. Seeing 

 Repeater entered in the .50 race, and remembering that 

 I had heard a good many ghost stories the previous year 

 when in Montreal about this chap's phenomenal speed, I 

 decided, after talking the matter over with my friends, to 

 wire L. W. Decker, of Montreal, who not only knew all 

 about the horse, but, as it afterwards turned out, owned 

 an interest in him. 



My telegram read as follows : ' ' Gray gelding Repeater 

 here. How fast can he trot?" About half an hour be- 

 fore leaving for the track the answer came back : ' ' Good 

 track, three heats better than .30 sure." Great Scott! 

 what a sure thing it did look to back the eastern giraffe, 

 and when we reached the ground and found John Quimby 

 knocking him down for five dollars in pools of forty and 



