NO RECORD OF BETS 



great star in the mud. In fact a reference to a previous 

 chapter will show that " Skeets " was not very anxious 

 about riding Proclamation in the mud, and handed 

 me that winning mount in the Manchester November 

 Handicap. Phil was certainly right when he said a 

 good mud rider will frequently bring a bad horse home, 

 because the riders of the good horses are not always 

 as game as they might be. Weak boys are always 

 handicapped on a heavy track. In such conditions a 

 horse needs help to keep him from sprawling and from 

 wasting the energy which will be useful later. I am 

 sure Skeets will not take the above amiss, for his stand- 

 ing has always been admitted, but he never put himself 

 up as a specialist on a sulking horse. 



^Vlien I was at Saratoga during that holiday I 

 noticed that Phil was just as careless about not jotting 

 down bets as he always had been. I have seen him 

 have a wager of 10,000 or 15,000 dollars altogether, 

 perhaps split up between three men. After the race if 

 he won it he would sometimes but not always write it 

 down, and if he lost would occasionally not bother a 

 bit until the end of the day. It was not to be wondered 

 at that he was not a hard man to convince that he had 

 left out a record of a bet when he was claimed for some- 

 thing he hadn't paid. His friends often asked him 

 why he didn't make notes. He would smile and 

 answer that he had trusted to his memory for so long 

 and that he couldn't be bothered. I never heard of 

 his having a secretary as it has been stated he had. A 

 secretary wasn't at all in his line of country, although 

 he had plenty of men working for him with the book- 

 makers. 



Two other big bettors, John Drake, who came to 

 England in 1899, and John W. Gates, who made such 

 a stir in 1900 and 1901, were very exact in their records 



165 



