Shaw at Saratoga

At Saratoga Springs, N. Y. the elm trees are so huge that from the air the town (pop.: 13,000) looks like a dense forest. There what seemed like the most successful U. S. racing season in 20 years last week reached its climax--a month-long meet in which 600 of the best thoroughbreds in the U. S. will compete in 185 races for $350,000 in prizes.

Principal diversion at Saratoga, after each day's races, is gambling in roadhouses like the Brook Club and the Piping Rock. Last week gambling-room proprietors expected to be allowed to run their games without interference from local authorities. To Miss Emma F. St. John, 300-lb. Saratoga chiropodist and church worker, who had requested him to remove the local commissioner of public safety, the district attorney and sheriff for their failure to clean up the town, Governor Herbert H. Lehman replied that he saw no need for executive action. When Miss St. John continued to protest, two men last week threw stink bombs through the window of her house.

First stake race of Saratoga's season went, appropriately, to Fitter Pat, whose owner, William Woodward, is chairman of The Jockey Club. At the track three days later Governor and Mrs. Lehman watched Mrs. John Hay Whitney's Rocky Run set a new two-mile track record to win the Beverwyck Steeplechase Handicap. First long-shot winner at Saratoga was a horse named Wee Tune at 50-to-1, on which bookmakers dropped some $50,000. Col. Edward Riley Bradley, who had 30 horses in his Saratoga string, got up at 4 a.m., went out to the track with "Bet Mosie," his personal betting commissioner, to clock workouts. Before the week was over, Col. Bradley had four winners to his credit.

Looking for socialites in the crowd of 15,000 that watched Col. Bradley's Balladier win the United States Hotel Stakes, photographers found: Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt (whose Discovery has run second to Mrs. Isabel Dodge Sloane's Cavalcade in four major races this year); Mrs. John Hay Whitney (who goes for morning rides on the backstretch of the racetrack) ; Joseph Widener (just back from Europe, wearing button-shoes); Samuel D. Riddle (who gives a party every time a descendant of his famed Man o' War wins a race); old John Sanford (whose son "Laddie" was playing polo on Long Island in the test games for the East-West matches). Notably absent was Mrs. Isabel Dodge Sloane, who was recuperating from pneumonia on Long Island.

What made last week's opening notable for Saratoga regulars was not the usual socialites but a line of 80 men perched on stools in a huge white betting shed at the far end of the grandstand. They were bookmakers, operating openly for the first time since 1907. That year Lillian Russell and "Diamond Jim" Brady went to the track every day. That year, also, Herbert Bayard Swope, now chairman of the New York State Racing Commission, was best man at Arnold Rothstein's wedding. To Saratoga last week went old John G. Cavanagh, called back to the betting ring last spring to head New York State bookmakers, settle their disputes as he had done 27 years ago. Of New York bookmakers, who have lost close to $2,000,000 because it has been a good year for favorites, only 80 of the 100 who began to operate at Jamaica in April were still in evidence last week. Most noticeable was "Long Tom" Shaw, lean, 6-ft. 3 bookie who has handled more bets this summer than any other bookmaker in the East.

Tom Shaw comes from New Orleans where he was once a champion bicycle racer. Nearing 60, he has grey hair, a ruddy face, a diamond stickpin in his tie. He is the only bookmaker in the East, as Tom Kearney of St. Louis is the only one in the West, to make a winter book on the Kentucky Derby. He owns a stable of six or seven horses, races them in the name of his lawyer John J. Robinson. His headquarters on Broadway are listed as a real-estate office. He began making books in New York in 1906. In 1908 he joined the "Mets" (Metropolitan Turf Association), a bookmakers' union which disbanded when betting was outlawed in New York. He usually rides in an open Rolls Royce. His stool is No. 1 in the bookmakers' line. Indefatigable, taciturn, phenomenally quick at mental arithmetic, "Long Tom" Shaw is considered so shrewd that his confreres often station their assistants near his slate to observe his odds. When they cannot get in close, they watch from a distance with field glasses.

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