By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, October 19, 1946
“Your prejudices,” declared Jimmie Frise, “are costing you money!”
“I’m willing to pay,” I retorted, “for my principles.”
“Look,” pleaded Jim, “it’s a sure thing.”
“In this life,” I countered, “nothing is sure.”
“Aw, for Pete’s sake,” cried Jimmie. “I tell you we can pay for the winter’s coal with this race. It’s the end of the racing season. All kinds of long shots come home at the end of the racing season. It’s the time for trainers and jockeys and horse owners to balance the budget.”
“You mean,” I sneered, “that racing is crooked…!”
“No sport on earth is as rigidly policed as horse-racing,” replied Jim hotly. There’s a continent-wide organization that embraces every track and every breeder and every angle of the horse-racing game and it is devoted to keeping horse-racing on the level….”
“Okay,” I scoffed, “then how about these benefit races, for balancing the budget?”
“At the end of the season,” said Jim picking his words carefully, “there is a sort of devil-may-care spirit that enters the sport. Trainers who have been nursing their horses along, so as not to overtax them, allow them to go full out in one last fling. Jockeys who are cautious riders suddenly became inspired with the spirit of the end of the season and ride with an abandoned quality that upsets all the calculations of trainers, other jockeys and all the dopesters who do the adding up.”
“Adding up?” I inquired.
“Sure,” said Jim. “How do you suppose the experts pick the winners? Simply by adding up all the factors that go into the race; the condition and past performance of the horse; the trainer; and the jockey. But at the end of the season, all these factors are muddled up by this sort of last-fling spirit. Nobody knows what horse is going to win.”
“Nobody but you!” I laughed.
“More long shots come through this week,” insisted Jim, “than at any other season.”
“Because nobody can pick the winner,” I suggested.
“Exactly,” agreed Jim.
“Then how do you know you’ve got a sure thing?” I triumphed.
“This horse, Schnitzler,” stated Jim flatly, “has been running second and third all season. Why? Because his trainer has been ordering the jockeys to ride him easy and let him develop himself. No forcing. The trainer figures, from Schnitzler’s pedigree, that he is a horse that develops slowly but steadily instead of one of those flash performers that is all through before he’s four years old.”
To Balance the Budget
“It’s all Dutch to me,” I interrupted. “Jim, look. I just don’t care for racing. It’s like stamp collecting. Either you like it or you don’t like it.”
“Schnitzler,” said Jim slowly, “is going to win today in the fourth race. And it’s going to pay 30 to 1.”
“You mean.” I asked, “that for a $2 ticket, he’d pay $30?”
“For a $10 ticket,” said Jim in a low, vibrant voice, “he’d pay … THREE… HUNDRED … DOLLARS!”
“Aw, Jim,” I pleaded, trying to wake him from the trance, “how do you know? What facts have you got to justify this fixation that’s got you, like some sort of lunacy…?”
“I,” said Jim, still in that low intense voice, “know the trainer, I know the jockey and… I know the horse!”
“Ah,” I said, “so you’ve bet on him before?”
“I bet on him all through the season,” admitted Jim.
“But he always came second or third?” I inquired.
“And I always bet him on the nose,” said Jim.
“And you’re going to bet him today again, on his last race of the season?” I demanded.
“The budget,” said Jim with that faraway look that hypnotized race fans wear, “the budget is just about to be balanced.”
“Tomorrow maybe,” I sighed, “you’ll wake up. Ten or fifteen dollars poorer…”
“I’ll have the money,” said Jim, with certainty, “for the winter’s coal.”
All this was at 10 o’clock in the morning.
At 1 o’clock, Jim appeared at the office door with his hat on.
“Coming?” he said heartily.
“I…” I said.
It was a beautiful day. Too beautiful to sit alone in an office pecking at a typewriter.
“Well,” I chuckled, “I might as well go, if for no other reason than to watch the expression on your face as all these castles in the air come tumbling down…”
So we drove out to the track in the lovely Indian summer afternoon and once again I found myself in that completely alien atmosphere of the race-track, surrounded by thousands of people all concentrated on a sport that leaves me cold. I never feel so completely a stranger on this earth as at the race-track. Sometimes I feel all these thousands are queer. And then, suddenly, I feel a little queer myself.
We got into the grandstand where Jimmie seemed to know everybody by their first name. It was like a club. Very chummy. Full of a lingo of its own. I began to feel queer.
These race meetings are something like a symphony concert. Each race is like a number on the program. Each number builds up, like a symphony, to a familiar climax. The first race, there was the usual tuning up, as the horses were walked to the starting post. Then the intense gathering up of feelings and emotions as the horses prepared for the start. That would be like the fine string music of the symphony. Then, suddenly, like the brass and woodwinds of the orchestra letting loose, the start! Then a kind of gathering pandemonium, as the orchestra of these thousands of fans swelled and rose to a crescendo that ended as climactically and violently as a Beethoven symphony …
Jim’s horse lost. He also lost the second race, and the third.
He asked me to come under the grandstand for a cup of coffee and while we were drinking the coffee, he asked me if I had any money.
“I never bring money to a race-track, Jim,” I informed him. “You know that. I have my principles. And I safeguard them.”
“Haven’t you got even five bucks?” pleaded Jim.
“I haven’t got even five bucks,” I replied firmly, fondling the $10 in $1 bills I had in my left-hand pants pocket.
Jim looked desperately around.
Meant For a Killing
“Look here,” I said sternly, “didn’t you say this horse Schnitzel or whatever it is ran in the fourth race?”
“Yes,” gritted Jim. “And I want to put 10 bucks on him. But that last race, the brother of one of the jockeys gave me a hundred to one chance on that horse I bet …”
“I see,” I said, amused. “Sure things all over the place!”
“I was going to make enough to put maybe 30 or 40 bucks on Schnitzler,” pleaded Jim. “But now I’ve only got four bucks left. Do you see anybody you know that you could borrow a few bucks…”
“I certainly do not!” I stated sharply.
“Six bucks,” muttered Jim bitterly. “Six bucks, six measly bucks. Take a walk around and see if there’s anybody you …”
“My friends,” I stated, “are not to be found around race-tracks. Why don’t you make a touch on any one of those sportsmen surrounding you up in the grandstand? You call each other by your first names…”
“I…I…” said Jim anxiously.
We finished the coffee and walked out on to the lawn.
Jim was acting like an expectant father. He was breathing big deep breaths, biting his teeth together, putting his hands deep in his pockets and pulling them out again. He looked at his four dollars several times. And he kept his eyes on the clock. All around us, the eager swarms were reading their programs with fatuous expressions. Already the procession towards the betting enclosure had begun.
“Hello, Mr. Clark,” came a pleasant voice.
I turned and recognized one of my neighbors from up the street.
“Why, how do you do!” I replied heartily. “Are you a follower of the sport of kings?”
“Oh, I usually come out for a few races,” said my neighbor, whom I had always taken for a deacon at least.
Jimmie was gripping my elbow and squeezing it meaningfully. I shook my arm free.
“How have you done?” asked the neighbor.
“Oh, I don’t …” I began.
But Jimmie, linking his arm through mine to show we were buddies, broke in: “As a matter of fact,” he said, “my little friend here has been cleaned in the last three races. And he’s trying to borrow six bucks off me…”
“I am not!” I cut in indignantly, but Jim got a Judo hold on my funnybone that almost made me screech with pain.
“Six bucks is all he wants,” cried Jim jovially. “But one of my superstitions is, never lend money to the guy you came to the races with. It’s okay to borrow from anybody else. But NOT the guy you came with …”
“Why,” laughed my neighbor, reaching into his pocket.
“Not…” I began but again Jim, laughing jovially, gave my elbow such a horrible dig with his digits that I felt myself wilting And at the same instant, he reached out and took the $6 my neighbor was holding out, and stuffed them playfully, in my breast pocket.
“There you are! Come on,” he chuckled, “come on and let’s place the bet…”
And before the slightly puzzled gaze of my neighbor, he swung me around and started up the lawn.
At the same instant. I felt two large hands seize me by the shoulders from behind. And glancing back, I saw another very large and heavy stranger had Jimmie by the shoulders. And we were both being propelled forward at a rate that kept our feet trotting smartly to keep us from falling.
I struggled.
“Here, what the dickens are …” I shouted.
But the two of us, side by side, were hustled through the crowd, up the lawn, out the side entrance past the grandstand and towards the gate.
In the privacy of the entrance, the big men relaxed their shoving. I shook myself.
“Will you inform me,” I demanded, setting my hat back on straight, “will you inform me the meaning this outrage!”
“Okay, bud,” said my man, dusting his hands. “Okay, scram!”
The whole thing was incomprehensible, bewildering. Out-of-place though I feel at a race-track, this was too much.
“I’ll call the police!” I grated, readjusting my clothing.
“Heh, heh, heh,” said both the large men.
“Look,” said Jimmie, who was pale as Swiss cheese, “look, boys, you’re making a mistake. My friend was only …”
“Aw, stow it, bud,” said the one with the black hat, “now scram. We seen the whole transaction. We seen you approach the gent. We seen you pass the tip. We seen you accept the money …”
“Jim!” I commanded. “What is this all about?”
“These are the Pinkerton men,” explained Jim pleasantly. “They watch out for touts and hangers-on. They have mistaken us for touts…”
“Heh, heh, heh,” agreed the two large men, preparing to shove us right out the gate. “If we ever saw a tout, this little guy is the champeen. Come on now! OUT!”
“Too Late”
And before I could even go of my own volition, the big fellow in the brown hat took me by the back of the coat collar and the pocket and fingered the 10 one-dollar bills I had there.
Jim followed.
And the two large men walked businesslike back into the grounds.
“But the race, the race!” suddenly yelled Jimmie, snatching the $6 from my breast pocket and adding it feverishly to his $4. “We’ve got to get this on the race …”
“Jim,” I ordered loudly, “I came here as an innocent spectator. I have been treated to every indignity…”
A bugle blew.
“Too late, too late!” moaned Jimmie, leaning against the fence, a broken man.
We stood there. We heard the silence fall. The slow, muttering silence. Then we heard the wild horse roar … “They’re off!” Then we listened to the rising symphony of the roaring grandstands. Then a mad cheer.
Out the gates poured the little dribble of people who always quits after the fourth, or fifth, or sixth race.
“Who won?” croaked Jimmie, seizing one of them by the lapels.
“A horse named Schnitzler,” said the passer-by disgustedly. “Paid 30 to 1.”
Jim crumpled beside the fence and sat, huddled, counting the $10 in his hands.
I ran my left hand cautiously into my pants pocket and fingered the 10 one-dollar bills I had there.
“Okay, Jim,” I croaked too. “Let’s go and get the car and go home.”
Editor’s Notes: As noted before, Jim was the gambler of the two, who would participate in activities like attending the race track and pool halls that Greg would not. Greg was more of a follower of his Victorian upbringing. Jim was hoping for enough money to pay for all of his coal needed for a coal furnace for the upcoming winter.
Touts at race tracks were people who offered racing tips for a share of any resulting winnings.
Pinkerton men were a generic definition for private detectives. In this case they would have been hired by the race track to root out undesirables.
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