Fools of Fortune; or, Gambling and Gamblers

by John Philip Quinn

THE TURF

Of all the evils connected or associated with games of chance in this country, perhaps the most vicious are those which surround the race-courses of the land—not only those extensive parks which are recognized as having a legitimate existence, but as well the country tracks where racing events are casual and sporadic. The “turf,” as we are popularly accustomed to term the race course with reference to its gambling features, implies not only the element of chance as manipulated by systematic knavery, and which will be found elsewhere fully explained, but also what is termed the legitimate sport of gentlemen, conducted as honestly as it may be and with every disposition on the part of managers and judges to give a fair test of the speed and endurance of the competing horses. Even in the latter case, it is a notorious fact that race tracks that are conducted in their official management under the highest auspices and by the most responsible individuals, are not in their actual surroundings, influences and results, less pernicious nor injurious than those which are openly in the charge of recognized swindlers and scoundrels. Even as to the great “events” which in this country are recognized and patronized, to the great misfortune of public morals, by the press and by society, governed though they may be by honorable men, and with every concerted determination for a fair and proper exhibition of honest results, it is notorious and undisputed, that these exhibitions are the harvest fields of systematized vice, and that while the judge in the stand may be immaculate, the seller of pools, the bookmaker, the touter, the tip-givers, the turf prophets and all the others who camp upon the trail of the credulous and unwary with schemes that, by methods of certainty, enrich the gambler without risk on his part, are one and all dishonest and designing scoundrels to whom the sense of honor is unknown, and whose infamous and insidious influence is one of the gravest dangers to which the morality and uprightness of the youth of our country are exposed.

The origin of horse-racing, as with that of our modern athletic sports, comes from the classic ages; but in the contests of equine speed and in the competition of personal skill or valor in the “brave days of old” there is no record of the thimble-rigging propensities which these latter days have developed. The competitions of those times were for public honor and prizes, for the encouragement of features which were essential to the public welfare and safety. In that period all free men were warriors, upon whom depended the security of life, property and national existence. The cultivation of ambition to excel in personal strength and swiftness had, therefore, a patriotic and commendable foundation; and the same as regarded the trials of speed by horses, which were for the improvement of the qualities upon which the warriors had to rely in these their main coadjutors upon the field of battle. All this had nothing in common with the turf as we recognize and realize it to-day. For this we have to look back to our mother, England, from whom it was an inheritance of shame whose evil influence has expanded like the upas tree ever since it first took a root in our land. In England, while it has been customary for turf enthusiasts to trace the history of their trade from about the reign of Charles I., the fact is that it was not really till the reign of George II. that the “turf,” as property understood, became a recognized entity. Prior to that time there had been plenty of horse-racing, in which gentlemen rode their own horses, and which was almost entirely free from the vicious concomitants which have later surrounded, characterized and dominated the race track. The leading meetings in England are the Newmarket, Epsom, Ascot, York, Doncaster and Goodwood. It is at Epsom that “the Derby,” an event of interest to the whole sporting world, is run. This is known as the Cockneys’ Holiday, and has been the subject of many an exemplification of the highest attainments of the art of word painting. Indeed the interest attaching to the vast and heterogeneous throng is to many greater than that which belongs to the race itself, every element between the palace and the poor-house being there represented. Ascot is favored frequently by the presence of royalty, and is on this account always the scene of a brilliant display by the aristocracy. Goodwood is also an aristocratic meeting, representative of the south of England and distinguished by the great value of the prizes offered for competition. The distinguishing feature at Doncaster is the race for the St. Leger stakes, which rivals the Derby in sporting importance; and it has been claimed that upon these two events not less than twenty-five per cent. of the whole English population are bettors, either risking their money on the tracks or at the pool rooms, which in every town throughout the country sell chances upon the results.

It is a somewhat remarkable fact that of late years while, in England, the most energetic efforts have been made, and with good success, to keep the thimble-riggers and blacklegs off the track, this fraternity, outside the track, in the adjacent hotels, and in other outside towns where interest in the result centers, carries on its audacious trade with increasing extent and profit, while to-day, throughout Great Britain, the mania for gambling upon the results of contests upon the turf is more wide-spread and deep-rooted than ever before. The harm resulting to public morals is incalculable, and will possibly more than offset the efforts for good of the ministers of religion. There is not a race meeting after which we do not hear of the downfall of some “plunger,” who in “legitimate” betting has risked his all upon the “wrong horse,” bringing ruin and disgrace too often upon the innocent wife and family, and opening up the alternative of crime, dishonor or suicide. Yet these are but the least of the injurious influences of gambling upon these race meetings. They are only heard of by reason of the conspicuous extent of the individual losses, or the prominence of the persons thus involved in the ruinous consequences of the national vice. Far more serious, more deplorable and more demoralizing are the results upon the infinite number of the “smaller fry,” who submit themselves as easy victims to the skillful swindler who runs the “speculation list” or the pool-room, whose specious but delusive allurements send the honest hand of many a youth surreptitiously into his employer’s cash-drawer, to be drawn forth forever tainted with dishonor; and merely in order that the ill-gotten gains of the experienced swindler may be enlarged. Round about all such tracks, too, may be seen the gaming devices of every description, and all the nefarious instrumentalities by means of which the honest man is deluded of his earnings for the benefit of systematic knavery. And yet the race-track is the “national sport” of England; to it, and all its contaminating, crime-producing, society-wrecking and soul-destroying influence, royalty lends its condescension, and princes and peers their active countenance and aid; bishops and churchmen, members of Parliament and professional men, participate and applaud; while even those in charge of the little children afford them special holidays in order that their young minds may be subjected to impressions which, in the years of their older youth will make them the easy prey of the agents of this monster vice. It is in the glitter and glamour of all its brilliant external attributes that England finds the pride with which she claims the turf as her peculiar national institution; it is in the ruined reputation, the blasted life, the broken heart, the wreck of happiness, the loss of honor and the headlong course to crime, which are to be traced by the tears of women and the wails of children, in the blighted homes throughout the land, that we recognize in the turf and all that pertains to it, England’s national curse, that must surely sooner or later invite and evoke a national retribution.

The details of the various rascalities practiced in connection with the “turf” being common to all countries, we shall deal with these features of the English national sport, at the close of this chapter, in a general explanation of the methods which affect the results of all race meetings, and which add strength to the steel meshes of the net in which the innocent and confiding bettor is certain to become involved.

THE AMERICAN TURF.

It is to be said to the honor and credit of the Puritan and Pilgrim settlers of New England, that they had a strong antipathy to every form of vice, and in their interdict against the evils which they had left England to escape, horse-racing was especially included. On the other hand the early settlements of the Old Dominion, (which originally included Kentucky), and of Carolina, were of aristocratic stock, retired army officers, the younger sons of gentlemen, etc., and as the early conditions that prevailed precluded many of the ordinary sports, horse-racing, generally in the form of the steeple-chase, was encouraged. This was not, however, the “turf,” in America, but it was the means of affording a nursery for the splendid animals which have made the American turf famous for the wonderful achievements in time and speed of its horses. In those early days travel in the South was almost altogether by saddle horses, and hence the necessity for developing those peculiar qualities in the horses used, as made them valuable for racing purposes. The stock was recruited from the best blood, imported from England, and as it was a peculiar mark of social distinction, where all men ride, to be well mounted, great care was taken in cultivating and improving the breeding of horses. Yearly meetings for running races became the custom; but at these affairs there were no bookmakers nor blacklegs, and the betting was generally of that perfunctory character which usually exists where the competing parties are interested rather in the results than in the stakes. As the country developed, the new state of Kentucky, with its splendid climate, its crystal streams and its unequalled grasses, became distinctively the home of fine horses, which up to the present day even, she has continued to supply to the racing world.

The trotting race had its origin in New York and took its peculiarity from the general use of the light wagon for road traveling. In this way the only possible method of testing speed was the “pace” or “trot,” and for many years in the Northeastern States the trotting meeting was the recognized form of sport, the practice becoming general and being the invariable accompaniment of every county fair. The earliest recorded organized trotting meeting of which there is any specific record is of date of 1818. The fastest time for fifty miles was recorded in favor of Spangle at Union Course, Long Island, Oct. 15, 1855. The best time for two miles under saddle was at Fashion Course, Long Island, July 1, 1863, by George M. Patchen. We mention these dates to show that as long as thirty-five years ago there were important meetings of the turf, and also to point out the fact that the public sense of humanity, growing with the increasing refinement of the country, has reduced these trials of speed generally to one-mile contests, and frequently to the half-mile.

Trotting races began to assume an aspect of national importance shortly after the war, and the first National Trotting Association was organized in February, 1870, under the name of the “National Association for the Promotion of the Interests of the Trotting Turf,” which in 1878, at a congress of members, was changed to that of “National Trotting Association.” It is a curious fact that the origin of the National Association arose in the abuses which invariably follow the practice of racing for money or of betting on unknown results. There had been complaints all over the country of crooked work on the race tracks—of “blind” horses being entered under assumed names to gull unsuspicious victims; of jockeys who “pulled” the winner so as to make him the loser; of improper decisions by judges, and of a thousand and one things in the way of serious and petty crookedness on the leading race tracks. It[It] became generally recognized that the confidence of the public in the integrity of racing contests in America was becoming exhausted and that racing was falling into contempt as well as falling off in its profits. Organization was originally effected in response to a circular sent out by the Narragansett Park Association, of Providence, R. I., in 1869. It proposed the formation of a central body for general control, and the establishment of a code of rules and penalties for the government of all tracks as the most effective means of correcting existing abuses and elevating the standard of honor and fair play, and the character of the American Trotting Turf. The results were gratifying so far as those objects were concerned, though it is a serious question whether the country would not have been greatly the gainer had the race-courses and their attending evils been allowed to extinguish themselves by the very excesses which were at that time making them offensive and contemptible. However, the organization was effected as stated, officers elected and, a code of laws adopted, under which the chief of the evils complained of disappeared from the official protection of the tracks, though they still continue under more insidious and less offensively unscrupulous methods. The membership of this association consists of the representative of a trotting course. In order to show the extraordinary growth of this mania for speculating upon the chances of the horse-race we may state that, commencing with 51 in 1870, in 1886 there were 273 courses represented in the National Association, while now there are 317, and in the American Association 419—in all 736. The government of the National Association is effected through the medium of a Board of Appeals consisting of five District Boards and a Board of Review, each of the former being entitled to three members of the general board, giving it thus fifteen members in addition to the President and Vice-presidents who are ex-officio members. The Board of Review is composed of a chairman appointed by the President from each of the five districts, and this Board has and exercises supreme authority and jurisdiction, being a final court of resort which decides all appeals from the decisions of the District Boards. The objects set forth on behalf of the association are the improvement of the breed and the development of horses by promotion of the interests of the American Trotting Turf; the prevention, detection and punishment of frauds thereon, and uniformity in the government and rules of trotting and pacing.