Sunshine for Gyps
In December, when wintry winds whistle up the gorge at Harpers Ferry and the temperature nears zero, the bush-league horse-racing circuit shivers to a halt at Charles Town, W. Va. It is the end of the line for gyp (short for gypsy) horsemen and their broken-down nags. Hibernating in the stalls there, the gyps nail up blankets and newspapers to keep out the cold. The swank comforts of Hialeah and Santa Anita are not for them. But this year, for the first time, the gyps went south for the winter. A race track, refurbished lor them, opened in the pine woods 16 miles from Tampa. Even its name was magic to shivering gyps: Sunshine Park.*
One of the first to hire a boxcar and head south was shy, skinny John Red, 30. Says John, who hadn't had a haircut in months: "People will think you got money if you dress up. They might try to rob you." He took eight horses and one pony south.
Track Slow. All was not sunny at Sunshine Park. On opening day a handful of customers showed up. It soon became a financial rarity: a track that was losing money. And Florida's cloudy weather this cold winter did not help. Yet except for a few gyps who "hopped" their horses, the racing was about as honest as it is anywhere--and like the big tracks, under state supervision.
The new fashion in hopping was vitamin B-1 injections, administered 24 hours before a race. Some of the crooked gyps believed that an older method--benzedrine--worked too, and did not show up in a saliva test the first time it was given. Everybody wanted to collect purse money ($525 to a winner) before the park fell on its face. Track stewards ruled three gyps off the track for "hopping."
Taciturn John Red hired no help. He slept in the stable, tended all the horses himself (which in a fashionable stable would busy five men). His equipment was primitive: because he lacked screw-eyes to hold up feed tubs, the horses ate off the floor. John rubbed all eight horses, galloped them, even shoed them. Last week, when Sunshine Park ended its 50-day meeting after going $100,000 in the red, John Red ordered another boxcar. This time he had some cash in his pants. His catch-as-catch-can stable had won eight races and $5,205.
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