Old Man Curry Race Track Stories

Emmett Van Loan Charles

Description

It is one of life's tragedies that as we go along we realize the changes that come upon almost everything with which we used to be associated. And this is noticeable not only in ordinary affairs, whether it be in business or in the home, but it obtrudes itself upon the sports or pastimes which we most affected in the days when some of us had more time or a greater predilection to indulge in them.

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819907275
• Langue: English

Extrait

INTRODUCTION
BY L. B. YATES
It is one of life's tragedies that as we go along werealize the changes that come upon almost everything with which weused to be associated. And this is noticeable not only in ordinaryaffairs, whether it be in business or in the home, but it obtrudesitself upon the sports or pastimes which we most affected in thedays when some of us had more time or a greater predilection toindulge in them.
We so often go back to an old stamping groundexpecting to find old friends or to meet the characters which to agreat extent added to the charm of local coloring, and nothingdisappoints us more than to find that they have all either gone theway of the earth or changed their manner of living and habitat.
I think this is brought more forcibly to mind whenwe view the turf activities of an earlier generation as comparedwith those more modern, because nowadays the game is playeddifferently all around and doesn't look the same from the viewpointof one who loved the spectacular and quaint figures that sodistinguished what we might call the Victorian Era of Americanracing.
The sport of emperors has to a great extent becomethe pastime of King Moneybags. And there is no place for ancientcrusaders like Old Man Curry, so he has taken the remnants of hisstable and gone back to the farm or merged into the humdrum andneutral tinted landscape which always designates the conventionaland ordinary.
He doesn't fit in any more. The cost of maintaininga racing stable is almost ten times greater than it was in the dayswhen he and his kind went up and down the country making the greatadventure. Racing has been systematized and ticketed and labeled insuch a way that it is only very rich men who can afford to indulgein it. The tracks west of Louisville are all closed. The skeletonhand of the gloom distributor has put padlocks on the gates. Evenif Old Man Curry was with us to-day, his sphere of action would belimited, unless he elected to play a game where the odds would beso immeasurably against him that he would be beaten long before hestarted.
So it is that when Charlie Van Loan went away, hebequeathed to us the records of a peculiar nomadic people which arenow almost like the argonauts and whose manner of living andhappy-go-lucky ways are but a memory. It is strange that althoughthe turf has always formed a prolific medium for writing people andhas lent itself admirably to fiction, very few authors seem to havetaken advantage of the opportunities offered.
As in other branches of sport, Van Loan was quick tosee this and he gave us story after story of the kind that men loveto read and chuckle over and retail to the first man they meet. Andso when you peruse the pages of Old Man Curry's book, you will findCharlie Van Loan at his very best. When one says that it means youwill follow a trail blazed by one of the most masterly short storywriters we ever had. Better yet, he writes about real people andthey do real believable things. You are not asked to stretch yourimagination or endeavor to form an excuse for the happening asportrayed. You will find it all logical and you will be able tofollow the old man and the biblically named horses from track totrack and from adventure to adventure, until you finally lay thebook aside and tell yourself what a bully time you had reading itand how humorous and human and wholly entertaining every page of itwas.
And to all this I might perhaps add something of myregard for the Charlie Van Loan I knew and how we foregathered andenjoyed the old days when we were brother carpenters on a westernnewspaper, and how out of the close association of many years Iformed an affectionate regard for him and realized how thoughtfuland kindly and big in heart and brain he really was. But in life hewas not the kind that sought or cared for adulation or fulsomeexpression of regard either spoken or written. So I had better harkback to the narratives of Old Man Curry and his connections,bidding you enjoy them to the limit, and assuring you that theyneed no eulogy from me or any one else. They speak forthemselves.
LEVELLING WITH ELISHA
The Bald-faced Kid shivered as he roosted on thepaddock fence, for the dawn was raw and cold and his overcoat washanging in the back room of a pawnbroker's establishment some twohundred miles away. Circumstances which he had unsuccessfullyendeavoured to control made it a question of the overcoat or theold-fashioned silver stop watch. The choice was not a difficultone. "I can get along without the benny," reflected the Kid,"because I'm naturally warm-blooded, but take away my old whitekettle and I'm a soldier gone to war without his gun."
In the language of the tack rooms, the Bald-facedKid was a hustler – a free lance of the turf, playing a lone handagainst owner and bookmaker, matching his wits against secretcombinations and operating upon the wheedled capital of thecredulous. He was sometimes called a tout, but this he resentedbitterly, explaining the difference between a tout and a hustler."A tout will have six suckers betting on six different horses inthe same race. Five of 'em have to lose. A tout is guessing all thetime, but a hustler is likely to know something. One horse a raceis my motto – sometimes only one horse a day, but I've got to knowsomething before I lead the sucker into the betting ring.... Whatis a sucker? Huh! He's a foolish party who bets money for a wiseboy because the wise boy never has any money to bet forhimself!"
Picking winners was the serious business of theKid's life, hence the early morning hours and the careful scrutinyof the daybreak workouts.
Bitter experience had taught the Kid the error oftrusting men, but up to a certain point he trusted horses. Hedepended upon his silver stop watch to divide the thoroughbredsinto two classes – those which were short of work and those whichwere ready. The former he eliminated as unfit; the latter he ceasedto trust, for the horse which is ready becomes a betting tool, atthe mercy of the bookmaker, the owner, and the strong-armed littlejockey. "Which one are they going to bet on to-day?" was the Kid'seternal question. "Which one is going to carry the checks?"
Across the track, dim in the gray light, a horsebroke swiftly from a canter into the full racing stride. Somethingclicked in the Kid's palm. "Got you!" he muttered.
His eye followed the horse up the back stretch intothe gloom of the upper turn where the flying figure was lost in thedeep shade of the trees. One shadow detached itself from the othersand appeared at the head of the straightaway. The muffled thud ofhoofs became audible, rising in swift crescendo as the shadowresolved itself into a gaunt bay horse with a tiny negro boycrouched motionless in the saddle. A rush, a flurry, a spatter ofclods, a low-flying drift of yellow dust and the vision passed, butthe Bald-faced Kid had seen enough to compensate him for the earlyhours and the lack of breakfast. He glanced at his watch. "OldElisha, under wraps and fighting for his head," was his comment."The nigger didn't let him out any part of the way.... Oh, youprophet of Israel!" "What did that bird step the three-quartersin?" asked a voice, and the Kid turned to confront Squeaking Henry,also a hustler, and at times a competitor. "Dunno; I didn't clockhim," lied the Kid. "That was Old Man Curry's nigger Mose,"continued Squeaking Henry, so-called because of his plaintivewhine, "and I was wondering if the horse wasn't Elijah. I didn'tget a good look at him. Maybe it was Obadiah or Nehemiah. Did youever hear such a lot of names in your life? They tell me Old ManCurry got 'em all out of the Bible." The Kid nodded. "Bible horsesare in fine company at this track," chuckled Squeaking Henry. "Ibeen here a week now, and darned if I can get onto the angles. Iguess Old Man Curry is the only owner here who ain't doin' businesswith some bookmaker or other. Look at that King William birdyesterday! He was twenty pounds the best in the race and he comefifth. The jock did everything to him but cut his throat. What areyou goin' to do when they run 'em in and out like that?... Say,Kid, was that Elijah or was it another one of them Bible beetles? Ididn't get a good look at him."
The Bald-faced Kid stole a sidelong glance atSqueaking Henry. "Neither did I," said he. "Why don't you ask OldMan Curry which horse it was? He'd tell you. He's just foolishenough to do it."
Halfway up the back stretch a shabby, elderly manleaned against a fence, thoughtfully chewing a straw as he watchedthe little negro check the bay horse to a walk. He had the flowingbeard of a patriarch, the mild eye of a deacon, the calm,untroubled brow of a philosopher, and his rusty black frock coatlent him a certain simple dignity quite rare upon the race tracksof the Jungle Circuit. In the tail pocket of the coat was somethingrarer still – a well-thumbed Bible, for this was Old Man Curry,famous as the owner of Isaiah, Elijah, Obadiah, Esther, Ezekiel,Jeremiah, Elisha, Nehemiah, and Ruth. In his spare moments he readthe Psalms of David for pleasure in their rolling cadences and theProverbs of Solomon for profit in their wisdom, which habit alonewas sufficient to earn for him a reputation for eccentricity.
Old Man Curry clinched this general opinion byentering into no entangling alliances with brother owners, and thebookmaker did not live who could call him friend. He attendedstrictly to his own business, which was training horses and racingthem to win, and while he did not swear, drink liquor, or smoke, heproved he was no Puritan by chewing fine-cut tobacco and betting onhis horses when he thought they had a chance to win and the oddswere to his liking. For the latter he claimed Scriptural precedent."Wasn't the children of Israel commanded to spile the Egyptians?"said he. "Wasn't they? Well, then! the way I figger it times haschanged a lot since then, but the principle's the same. There'ssome children of Israel making book 'roun