Winning Waters

Bilious blue bloods and asthmatic aristocrats have sipped the strong waters of La Bourboule for centuries. The heady brew burbling up from radioactive springs around the French spa is spiced with arsenic and bicarbonate of soda and, so the Bourbouliens say, is good for anemia, rheumatism, diabetes, postprandial bloat, intermittent fevers and a host of other ailments. Sooner or later, shrewd Gallic hoteliers were sure to figure that what is good for man is also good for beasts. One fellow with the soul of a pressagent finally hit on the thought that a swig or two from La Bourboule's springs might change a candidate for the horse butchers into a stakes-winning thoroughbred.*

Hot & Cold Care. Bourboule businessmen promptly hired Gentleman Jockey Andre Bruneau. Loaded with Bourboule cash and blessed with a sharp eye for not-too-sick selling platers, Bruneau bought a four-year-old bay named Pyrame, a short-winded chronic wheezer with an unimpressive record on the track. A special stall was built half a mile from La Bourboule's best spring, outfitted with hot and cold running water plus steam pipes, and Pyrame began the cure.

Daily at 5 a.m., the horse was stuffed into a stall heated to 105DEG F., subjected to half an hour's isolation in a dank fog of springwater steam. As if that were not enough, tubes were shoved into his mouth and vapor blown down his throat. Later, through a rubber mask over nostrils and mouth, he was forced to inhale more of the curative minerals. After an hour of cooling stall-walking, Pyrame was led out to the light and air, got his daily ration of Bourboulien water, fresh from the spring.

Who's a Fool? At first the treatment left Pyrame too weak even to work up a thirst. But having led their horse to their esteemed water, the Bourbouliens made him drink. By last week he was taking his medicine like a man, frisking around almost like a race horse. Just about everybody was overjoyed, impatient for the day when they could get down a bet--everybody, that is, but the local Poujadists. They plastered the town with posters: "Bourbouliens, whom are they making a fool of? If poor little Pyrame is wheezing or broken-winded, there's a way to deal with him--slaughter him! . . . Bourbouliens, are you going to remain untouched when thermal services are frankly insufficient for adults as well as children?"

La Bourboule's entrepreneurs, apparently, are thoroughly untouched by the Poujadists' complaints. They are already planning to enter Pyrame in September race meetings. If he runs well, they intend to open branch spas at the tracks at Maisons-Laffitte and Chantilly.

* An idea that is not uncommon among U.S. horse trainers. Nashua, the millionaire thoroughbred, along with many a competitor, shuns tap water, drinks only Mountain Valley Water, a bottled mineral elixir from Hot Springs, Ark. Some trainers think the spring water tastes better to horses, is good for equine kidneys. Horses are occasionally shipped to Hot Springs itself, where they can run at Oaklawn Park while taking heavy dosages on home ground.

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