TOD SLOAN 



my ear on again, and I appeared before Mr WTiitney 

 with my head in bandages and one eye closed. He 

 looked at me for a minute and then laughed and said : 

 " Well, how does the other fellow look ? " 



It appeared that he had sent for me to ask if I would 

 like to go to America to ride his horse in the Futurity, 

 the richest race in America, but seeing me in such bad 

 shape he said he supposed there could be no chance 

 of my caring for such a journey. 



" Never mind about the chance," I answered. " I'll 

 go all right and I shall be able to ride." 



He persisted in saying that he didn't think I would 

 be able to manage it, especially as the Futurity was 

 only about two weeks off, but he gave me five thousand 

 dollars for my expenses and I went aboard ship. 



Well, I rode his colt Ballyhoo Bey and won the 

 Futurity. It was a great regret to me that Mr Whitney 

 was on the ocean at the time and didn't see the race. 

 Then I rode the same colt in the Flatbush a week later 

 and won again. It was not until after that that I 

 heard that Martha, the little mare I had bought for 

 him at Saratoga, was the dam of Ballyhoo Bey. Speak- 

 ing of that same Flatbush it was about the funniest 

 race I ever rode in or heard of. Some of the other 

 jockeys had framed it to " do me up." I had more 

 than an inkling of it myself already and Winnie 

 O'Connor, who did not have a mount in the race, came 

 to warn me. " These boys think you are a butt-in, 

 Tod," he said ; *' and they are going to try and fix 

 you ; be on your guard." I told him I could take care 

 of myself and when we went to the post I asked the 

 starter Christopher Fitzgerald about it. 



" I have heard a rumour of some such thing," he 

 said. Then he made a little speech to the jockeys : 

 " If I see the slightest thing out of the way here I'll 



40 



