252 CANADIAN TURF RECOLLECTIONS 



fifty dollars, it looked such real jam that we could not 

 resist dipping our fingers into the tempting pot. In fact, 

 we did it many times, and when the bell sounded for the 

 first heat in the .50 class I would not swear we hadn't 

 figured up our winnings. In the different attempts that 

 were made Repeater was well to the front in all of them 

 and showed lots of speed. Finally when the word was 

 given he shot to the front, and at the quarter pole was 

 two lengths in the lead and going very easily. On to the 

 half-mile pole he kept sailing, leader of the first division, 

 and, 'pon my word, it did look just as if it was all over, 

 bar the shouting. But just as he swung to the turn round- 

 ing into the home stretch he left his feet and then com- 

 menced a jigging business that fairly discounted any- 

 thing of the sort I ever saw before or since. He literally 

 kept bobbing up and down like a rocking horse, and when 

 his driver did at last walk him into a trot, the horses 

 were under the wire and the distance flag had consigned 

 him to the obscurity of the stable. Time, 2.32. 



Just about that time we wished the science of tele- 

 graphing had not been discovered, but when early the fol- 

 lowing morning he turned the track in 2.31, we thought 

 it would be good policy to look for our money where we 

 had lost it and back him again in the 2.45 class to be 

 trotted that day. We did it, and got even larger odds 

 against our money. The first heat started in much the 

 same style as on the preceding day. At the half-mile pole 

 the Montrealer was three lengths on the lead, when one 

 of those yellow curs that seem to infest a race course, ran 

 in front of Repeater and gave him an excuse to repeat 

 his great dance act. He did it in fine form and kept on 

 doing it till one commenced to wonder if he wasn 't anch- 

 ored right there. When he reached home the distance flag 

 had been dropped, folded up and carried to the judges' 

 stand. Time of the heat, 2.42i/^. Once more cardboard 

 littered the green sward, and we decided that the horse 

 that on a good track could go three heats better than .30 

 was perhaps a good enough nag to fool around home with, 

 but he was of mighty little account at an Ontario meeting. 



