Big Stories, Not Winnings

One roason for the great popularity of raciug among men who know nothing about the sport is tho extraordinary forfranes which people are supposed to make in the course of 15 or 20 minutes by betting on horses which have a long price marked opposite their names. The racing editors of several of the morning papers are exceedingly oareful in noting the winnings and losses of prominent men on the turf when they are worthy of comment, but this is not true of all the men who sit iu the reporters' stand at the tracks. Every year some particular man is picked out, and the stories of his winnings are mentioned day af ter day quite as a matter of course, but never with any real notiou of the actual facts of the case. McCafferty, for instance, is commonly credited by the papers with having lauded between $50,000 and $00, 000 on a single race this week, and a few days liefore it was solemnly announced in the papers that "Pittsburg Phil" had a rather bad two days' racing, but haviug landed $55,000 on Candelabra he was feeling more comfortable. Such winnings as these are noted usually as a matter of course in the shape of a footnote or some small item of news of the track. The inconsi8tency of these statements is apparent sometimes, even to people who have no knowledge of racing. When McCafferty rode Rongh and Ready, for instance, the price was 50 to 1, and it was stated that McCafFerty bet $5, 000 of his own and his partner'a money on his mount. Of eourse it would be impossible to place such an enormous sum of money on an outside horse, aa the bookmakers are too sharp to be caught napping that way. But, assuming that the story is true and that McCafferty had bet that amount of money, his winnings would have amounted to $250,000 on that particular race. People who imagine that the bookmakers at Sheepshead Bay can pay out $250,000 on a single overnight race have a lofty opinión of the financial stability of the ring. It iscurious to note how persistently this exaggeration is practiced, since it is apparent to all racegoers that such enormous winnings