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Show jail ales I As told to: ELMO FRANK E. .nd SCOTT HAGAN WATSON Blondy by a Tongue! IT If AY bai-k In IS!)- said the old turfman I owned a beautiful racing mare whose name was Wnmly because of her color. My other possession was a farm but it had a "plaster" of $13,000. Bad luck cut between me and the purses although Nigger Jim, my trainer, would get her cream-colored bolv In the pink before every race. Ye taught P.londy a lot of tricks, between losing races. One was to make a face. Nigger .Tim or I would hold an apple or carrot so she had to stretch her neck and put out her tongue for it. And she got so she would do this whenever we told her "make a face." We entered the mare in a claiming claim-ing race at Churchill Downs the spring of '92. It was May 15, to be exact. The mortgage on the farm was due May 16. Xiggor Jim had Blondy iu great form for the lVa mile race. Hut the bookies were laying 20 to 1 against our nag. I scared up a thousand berries and placed the whole roll at 20 to 1. It was win the race or lose the farm. The horses were away evenly hut 100 yards from the start Blondy stumbled and lost stride. Then she winged away, regaining lost ground at every jump. Then a horse cut in front of her. It was Dixie Dude, and she had to be pulled. Down the back stretch and around the turn they came. Blondy was moving up on the outside. When they hit the stretch she and Dixie Dude were running head and head. It looked like a certain dead heat but at the last jump or two Nigger Jim, hanging on the rail, yelled "Make a face, Yo' Blondy 1 Make a face!" Thank God! Blondy heard, straightened her neck, shot out her tongue across the finish line and won the race. Western Newspaper Union. |