Ryder's Race Track

In 1898, a barber took all his savings out of the bank and bet them on a horse race. The horse he bet on did not win. Discouraged, the barber spent the night in drunken orgy and stupor. Early in the morning he killed himself.

The barber, a friend of famed Painter Albert Pinkham Ryder, was employed by the Albert Hotel in Manhattan, owned by the brother of Painter Albert Pinkham Ryder. Hearing of the barber's suicide, Painter Ryder was shocked. He painted a picture of a skeleton jockey perched upon a great white race horse. The great white horse was galloping around a race track. In the corner of the picture was a snake, to symbolize temptation.

This picture, after the death of Painter Ryder in 1917, was hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Manhattan. In 1924, it was bought by the Feragil Galleries, in Manhattan. The Feragil Galleries sold it, for a price not made public but estimated at $18,000, to the Cleveland Museum of Art. There it will hang from now on, a good painting and a ghoulish warning to all reckless sports.