12 Sports Aces, May 1943 — page 68: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

66 12 SPORTS ACES Why, that’s the best race that Argentine tango dancer run in a dog’s age. His feet are teo big. They hp together when he runs” Jackie gasped. He stared at Hollie. “Sure, he did all right as a two-year- old—that’s hew Tip got suckered into buying him, Tip’s got a heart instead of a brain. Like today. He played five grand on the beak for the clown. It was the dough he was glum about—not your ride, Jackle. Tip’s outside now. He wants to gee you.” “You rode a nice race, Jackie,” Tip Murray said, when Jackie met him out- side, under the dappled shade of a syca- more. Tip’s suit was rumpled. His face was tired. “I’d like you to try again. I’ve got a couple good horses.” “But what about Bad Boy?” Jackie said. “Aren’t you racing Bad Boy?” Tip gave him a leok. He started to say something, then shrugged it off. “They don’t pay off on how you feel about a horse!” he said finally. Jackie learned some things about Tip in the next days. Tip had been se high in the show world, Jackie took it for granted that he always would be. His broadcasts had only a few more weeks to run before his contract terminated, and his last pic- tures had been flops. He was getting too pudgy for Hellywood. Too unromantic. But it still took the same amount of mon- ey to care for Tip’s wife and three young- sters. And Tip had always been rather free with his dough. And Bad Boy, te top things, had clipped Tip for an addi- tional hundred grand. Jackie thought of that hundred grand —a hundred grand that Tip desperately needed—and went right to work on Bad Boy. Besides, he was in love with the big, red animal. For about three-quarters of the race, no horse alive could touch him, Jackie found out. Then, any plough- horse could. “You see what I mean?” Tip said, in the cold gray dawn of an early morning workout. “You see how appearances can throw your judgment off? He’s high strung, like a good thoroughbred should be. But when it comes to racing—” Tip broke off; he didn’t have to go on with — what he was thinking, But Jackie remembered the feel of the- big red between his legs during that fifth race in the Occidental, His power. The fight in him, fight as big as his tremen- dous body. ACKIE was conscious that the eyes of the other owners and stablehands were on him occasionally as he went about his work. He knew they were passing re- marks behind his back. They were saying he was the rider who had been mixed up in a crooked deal, and that Tip Murray really must be slipping to employ him. Still Jackie spent hours in the stable area. He watched the Boy eat and drink, He watched him dust-bathed after a blow- out, watched him cooled, rubbed and groomed. Jackie bought up an old Tog- genburg nanny goat for ten dollars and kept her in the stable with the Boy to quiet his nervousness. The day came when Jackie knew the slurring cracks about him were getting through to Tip. It filled Jackie with a warm glow, seeing how Tip ignored them. Jackie’s reaction was to drive himself the harder. He had to make good with the Boy. He had to show Tip his appre- ciation. Then Jackie made a discovery. Tip was tired and irritable one day in a late after- noon visit to the stables. He said he’d bolt- ed his lunch, dashing to a broadcast. He asked for a bicarbonate. Jackie could not help but see a parallel when he fed Bad Boy later.-Bad Boy bolted his feed! He - gulped it down in great swallows! Jackie hand-fed him after that. He fed him little by little, so that he had to eat slowly. Almost immediately, a difference showed in his workouts. Bad Boy, he realized then, must have been suffering from chronic indigestion! Within a week, Jackie clocked the big red in a mile and “an eighth at 1.50! The Wildmere Memorial was just a week off. The. Wildmere was the tradi- tional race to nominate candidates for the fabulous Santa Rey handicap. Tip was making a joint entry for his stable. But he favored the nod to either Retake or Blue O’ Night, his two other horses. Gomichbooks ‘ ' . (E@)