Tales of the turf

by Hugh S. Fullerton

Riding steeplechasers in races means in the majority of cases moral and physical suicide. Jaundice had no fear of physical consequence, nor any conception of morality. With two drinks of whisky poured into his outraged body, he would have tried to make his mount jump the Grand Cañon, had the course led in that direction. Falls and broken bones failed to break his nerve, but his subconscious honesty was shattered. On the flat he never had ridden a crooked race. He was restrained by no consciousness of right or wrong. He tried always to win because he loved the horses he rode. Over the jumps he had no such scruples. The steeplechase horses were “has-beens” like himself and entitled to no consideration. He commenced to ride queer-looking races. He was nineteen when he fell off the favorite in a steeplechase race to permit an outsider to win and the stewards ruled him off the tracks for one year.

What Jaundice did in that year of banishment he alone knew in detail. Barred from the only home and the only associates he had ever known, the great loneliness came upon him. He was broke. He stole and was sent to prison. When the suspension was lifted he went back to the tracks. He had grown heavier and his eyes and his mind were blurred by drink. He lived with the horses, attaching himself to the stable for which he had been a star jockey, and lived in the stalls and the cars. His love of the animals themselves had waned. Drudgery and vicious living had warped even that instinct. When he dared he became a tout, whispering information to petty gamblers at the edge of the betting ring. When he left the tracks at night it was to betray stable information to bartenders in return for drinks.

When he was twenty-two there remained two loves by which it was proved that all good can not be smelted out of a human being. One was for Doc Grausman, the gallant bay stake horse of the stable, whose dam he had ridden to victory many times. The other was for Lord James.

On race-tracks there is something in a name. Jaundice received his because his complexion had become a dirty yellow. Lord James was so called because the one spark of decency remaining in him caused him to conceal his family name. It was reputed that he was the son of an English nobleman and that he could have a title and estate if he returned to England. Rags of an old pride and remnants of decent breeding restrained Lord James from mentioning the family name as his own or from returning home to disgrace them. He had come to America, a younger son, with a stable of race-horses and high hopes. Robbed, fleeced, he had “quit.” Jaundice can not be spoken of as having degenerated. His original height permitted but a slight fall. But Lord James had sunk to even lower levels. He was a cadger, a tout, and a sneak-thief at such times when no risk was involved.

No one around the tracks hated either Lord James or Jaundice. They pitied Jaundice, but the touts themselves despised Lord James. He had lost all his courage, if he ever possessed any, and drink had sapped his health and his brain. Of the trio, only Doc Grausman bore his name honestly. His names were those of his sire and his granddam, and he was of royal blood and three years old.

When Lord James and Jaundice had become friends no one knew. Probably it was during Jaundice’s career as a winning jockey, while he scattered money recklessly after every winning race. Upon such boys Lord James had preyed for years. These two had nothing in common. Race, religion, birth, breeding, and education made them different, but they met in the thick scum of vice and became inseparable. For Lord James, Jaundice stole and betrayed stable secrets, pulled race-horses, bought drinks, and furnished food and lodging. It is not recorded that Lord James ever did anything for Jaundice.

These two sank lower and lower together. When the majority of the race-tracks of the country were closed, they disappeared from the world of sport, starved, and served prison terms together. When racing reopened, they reappeared. Jaundice had developed a cough. His wasted body revealed the ravages of tuberculosis. Lord James was wearing, with a pitiful effort to maintain an air of decency, a suit purchased with his last remittance money two years before.

The horses were racing at Jamaica and the weather was raw and rainy. They experienced difficulty in gaining an entry to the track and were compelled to remain outside, shivering and wet, until the day’s sport ended. Then a negro stable-boy allowed them to sleep with him in a stall, and Jaundice procured food from the camp-fires, where no one ever is refused.

Lord James did not get up the next morning. He had crawled into the hay with wet clothing and in the morning he had a fever. Jaundice brought him food, but he did not eat. All day he remained huddled in the hay, covered with horse blankets, his face turned to the board wall. He was thinking and his mind was Gethsemane.

During the night Lord James touched Jaundice with his hand and waked him. Very quietly and with a return of long-forgotten dignity, he entrusted to Jaundice an envelope upon which was written an address in England, charging him to mail it and allow no one to see it. He asked Jaundice to see the boys and ask them to bury him decently. Then he gripped Jaundice’s hand and died gamely, sustained by the traditions of his race and class. Jaundice alone wept. It was the first time in many years he had wept, and he was ashamed of his tears.