There are many stories told of the honesty of Ed Geers. It must be remembered that in the life he has led, the terrible, bruising, fighting battles of the turf, when fame and fortune often hang on the wire for which hundreds of others are driving as well as he, that he is often sorely and terribly tempted. Men are human at most, and in a fight for money, for fame, for the joy of victory, all combined in one race, all the great stakes of life, is it a wonder that millionaire horsemen have tried to buy him, that rich breeders have tried to bribe him, greedy owners corner him and tricksters and knaves foul him? Think of twenty-five years of this and then coming out without a stain on his name, a breath of suspicion and the pseudonum of Honest Ed Geers—won, too, in the light of the fiercest conflict.
Walter is game, so is Geers. In the many years in which the latter has been in the sulky he has met with accidents which, if they failed to break his neck, would have broken the heart of an ordinary man.
All horsemen will recall the bad accident he had with Searchlight and the one that sent him to the hospital at Memphis a few years ago, with a broken ankle. But a few weeks ago he was in a bad mix-up at Buffalo, when King Direct’s foot went into the sulky wheel of the contending horse. The Nestor of the turf was unconscious when picked up, but quickly revived and dryly remarked, “Now, don’t make a hurrah of this thing and scare everybody to death for nothing.” That remark is an index of his character. He hates a hurrah. The plumage of the peacock has never become the pit game trimmed for the fight. He is loyal to his friends, modest, quiet, honest, and with reverence for all that is sacred and good. He is one of the large men of his calling.
The training of Walter Direct has been in keeping with Mr. Geers’ theory that colts should be trained early but not hard. From the May night when he was foaled in a terrific thunderstorm, so fierce that Old Wash, who acted as his midwife, was scarcely able to keep him from drowning, until to-day, he has had the best of attention. His dam was fed grain during the nursing period, and Walter soon learned to eat it with her. He was broken to halter as a weanling, and the next spring, Negley, the colored caretaker, broke him to harness, with occasional jogs. The fall after he was a two-year-old he was sent to Memphis to Geers and given his first real lessons, and so trained each winter, with joggings in the summer by Negley at Columbia. Mr. Geers’ rule is to keep them feeling good with a brush now and then for speed. He has a horror of overworking colts. Indeed, his stable is never asked to go the fast heats that many other owners delight in before being shipped to the races. He saves their speed and vital force for the time when it is needed most. In the spring when Walter was a three-year-old he was asked to go a fast mile in 2:14, and was sent to Columbia to be jogged and turned out. The next spring he paced his mile in 2:08 3/4, when he was sent back home again. On September 15, 1904 he was sent again to Mr. Geers and to fame.
LORD ULLIN’S DAUGHTER.
(Revised by Trotwood and brought up to date.)
A chieftain to the Highland bound
Would steal Lord Ullin’s daughter;
He bought a new machine in town—