from Apr 5, 1950 HH.
We well recall one season when George Smith was staging one of his lengthy overcoat meetings at Cranwood Park, Cleveland, O., he arranged for Muzzey to assist the local favorites, Eli Crutch and Austin Estabrook in the auction box, and the witty Yankee made a great hit with the customers. While our short schooling limited our appreciation of poetry, an amusing bit of doggerel occasionally amuses us, especially when bringing in characters and horses we knew. Before "opening the store" one day, Muzzey to get the prospective customers together and interested, recited "a bit" about the occasion when Eddie McGrath and the pacer Tennessee Bill 2:101/4 failed to make the grade at Windsor, Conn., and it proved so amusing that we afterward published it. Seeing it in one of our old files the other day, we are giving it another airing.
If you'll sit tight and just keep still,
I'll tell you of a horse called Tennessee Bill.
They brought him to Windsor one day last fall,
Expecting to clean up in one spectacular haul
All the soft folding money, both large and small.
In the tent of instructions, near the big water tank,
They threw in their dough as if they'd robbed a bank,
While Eddie McGrath with a smile on his face
Drove Tennessee Bill in the fourteen pace.
The way that he skinned him down to the half
Made the men from Pa., burst out with a laugh.
Then into the back stretch he went with a rush,
But on the way home, Bill got lost in the crush.
He staggered in fourth, kneespreaders and all,
And the sports from Pa., all took a hard fall.
They shipped Bill that night by freight, so they say,
And marked the car "Empty, don't feed any hay."
Now all you sharp-shooters who are waiting for the kill,
Just bear in mind the finish of Tennessee Bill.
