Horseshoe Man

In Manhattan's Madison Square Garden one night last week 18,000 fight fans witnessed one of the most exciting stretch finishes they could remember. Onetime World Heavyweight Champion Jim Braddock had entered the ring an 8-to-5 underdog in a ten-round bout with Welshman Tommy Farr, British heavyweight champion. For eight rounds Jim Braddock did nothing to belie the betting public's estimation of him. Then suddenly, in the ninth round, the 32-year-old "Cinderella Man," who came off Relief three years ago to win the world championship from Max Baer and then lost it to Joe Louis last June, pranced out of his corner, began slugging rights & lefts at his opponent. Before Welshman Farr knew what it was all about, the tenth round was over and Jim Braddock was the winner.

Whether seasoned Jim Braddock had deliberately conserved himself during the early rounds, saving his energy and his aging legs for a smash-bang windup, or whether he had been momentarily rejuvenated by a desperate will-to-win, aided & abetted by the exhilarating encouragement from the galleries, no two fans seemed to agree. But in his dressing room after the fight, Jim Braddock probably had the answer: a rabbit's-foot charm and a painted horseshoe. To his merry, milling admirers he explained that the horseshoe had been presented to him just before the fight by John F. ("Jafsie") Condon, onetime intermediary in the Lindbergh kidnapping case, who had received it from onetime World Champion Bob Fitzsimmons, who had fashioned it with his own hands in 1896. "And," added Braddock, "it's been lucky ever since."

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