SOL CARPENTER AND THE GREENFIELD RACE.
“Jest ez you please, Mr. Carpenter. It’s easy enough to charge up a poor horse to the account of a rider. Here’s the boodle.”
DEPARTURE FOR THE DERBY
And so another race was arranged, and Mr. Carpenter went among us and assured that his own son should ride the next time, and there would be no trouble about it.
We consulted all the next week, and Mr. Scobey was approached on the subject. Mr. Scobey assured us that he knew “Nero,” and knew his own horse. “Nero” was good for a long race, but for a dash of a mile “Calico” could get away with him every time. We shared Mr. Scobey’s opinion, and to Mr. Carpenter’s disgust, Plymouth wagered all the money it could raise upon “Calico.” It requires but few words to state the result. “Calico” won the first heat easily, and “Nero” won the other two just as easily, and Plymouth was again bankrupt.
And then one of the riders who was disappointed in his share of the plunder, came to the front and made known what, if we had not been an entire menagerie of asses, we might have known in advance, that Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Scobey were in partnership, and that “Calico” was a horse hired from Cleveland for the occasion, and that it was a very ingenious scheme put up by Mr. Carpenter to victimize his neighbors, and that out of the speculation the two had made a very nice lot of money.
I don’t pretend to say that this has anything to do with the Derby, but it illustrates the morals of the turf so well that I could not help putting it upon paper. Racing is about the same thing everywhere, except upon Epsom Downs. These races are conducted fairly, for they are under the patronage of men to whom the honor of owning a winning horse is more than any amount of money that can possibly be won. The English noblemen want this honor, and they spend fabulous amounts of money to attain it. I won’t say that the Duke of Wellington would have exchanged Waterloo for the Derby, but I do say that if after Waterloo he could have had a horse capable of taking the prize, he would have died better satisfied with himself.