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![]() Hope Springs, Like Leone
It is to be hoped that Gene Leone, the New York restaurateur, wil some time own the winner of the Kentucky Derby. The reasons for this hope are partly personal, but mainly they arise from plain ordinary curiosity. I'd just like to see what he'd do with it. Mr. Leone some time ago, through no fault of his own and an intricate chain of events, came in possession of a horse named Pounditout, an animal which had more publicity than any non-winner since the late Gen. George Armstrong Custer. Pounditout did not win any races because of a slight defect in velocity or, as the would say in Lexington, because he could not beat a fat man from here to Lafayette Hotel. This did not deter Mr. Leone from throwing a female wolf of a party in Pounditout's honor. As a result of this party, Mr. Leone became possessed of a share variously estimated at from one-sixteenth to one-eighth of another horse named Saucy. In her first three starts Saucy raced against a total of twenty-nine horses and succeeded in beating three of them. But in her fourth start, for reasons that are still not clear to her trainer, Walter Kelley, Saucy ($59.10) dasjed off in front and was never headed. Young Jim Picou, who represents one-eighteenth of his generation of the Picou family, was the rider, and he did not have any explanation of it either. Now, if Mr. Leone threw a female wolf of a party over Pounditout, I suppose I do not need to tell you what happened when he came up with one-eighth of an actual winner. So I want him to have a Kentucky Derby winner all of his own, just to see what the recordings are on the seismograph at Fordham. The story of Saucy has been told before, but not lately, and you just as well read it again. She has an estimated total of 147 owners, nearly all voal in one way or another, most of them holding one two-hundred-and-fifty-sixth of her in fee simple and entail. They receive a monthly bulletin of approximately 1,800 words on her progress. They have received, and are required to wear on state occasions, a bow tie in the stable colors of blue and orange, a bow tie that does not confer any obscurity on the wearer. Cash customers of Mr. Leone's establishment last Monday began to get a slightly glazed expression as one after another of these ties went past them. Managing demon of the Saucy Syndicate is Dick Andrade, a large Texan, who conceived the idea last year but put most of it into execution during a six-day cocktail party he happened to be having before the Derby last May. At one point he had distributed 140 per cent of Saucy, but this did not bother him long. He recapitalized and split her into smaller pieces. Saucy races for, but usually against, the Little Mothers Club, though you will find them as Little M. Farm, The Jockey Club having taken a dim view of any attempt to inject facetiousness into racing, just as baseball did when Bill Veeck played the midget. The name comes from a group of Mr. Andrade's friends in Dallas, an organization dedicated to the belief that under cerain circumstances two pairs may be made to beat three jacks. Mr. Leone managed to get about sixty of Saucy's owners into his place last week and, rather more to my surprise, to get them out again. Don Ameche, who used to own whole horses of his own, was toastmaster, and he did what all toastmasters do: he called on people to talk. Joe E. Lewis, a Producer for the Game, who had run over from the Copacabana in case somebody had a live horse, listened to four or five of them remarked openly, "If anybody makes a speech here, it'll be the first one tonight." Saucy, to be unchivalrously blunt about it, is not very fast and, being a daughter of Whirlaway, probably not very bright. But she added greatly to the enjoyment, and detracted little from the purses, of a large number of people. If there were more like her, racing would be more pleasant, even if worse. In this connection a story occurs, particularly recommended to Saucy's trainer. There was a man who owned a horse in which he was very well pleased, though the horse ran with a certain amount of leisure. He would be ninth or twelve, and that sort of thing. The trainer of this animal was perfectly willing to accept his $12 a day for feed and care of a slow horse, and since the horse could not run fast enough to break himself down, it looked like a lifetime position. But he kept wondering how long the owner would stand up under the punishment. The owner, however, stayed cheerful. Every time his horse raced he would write industriously in a little notebook he carried, and after a while the trainer got curious. He wasn't disturbed, as a trainer is when he finds how owner fooling with a condition book; he just wanted to know. "What do you keep writing in that book?" he asked finally. "Are you timing him independantly or something?" "Not at all," said the owner, waving the book. "Every time he runs he beats one or two horses, sometimes three. I'm keeping the names of the horses he beats in this book. Sooner or later a race wil come up with nothing but these horses in it. Then we'll bet!" Hope, as Mr. Pope remarked, springs. So, on the slightest provocation, does Mr. Leone.
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