Speed Kings by Andy Bull

and the chasing pack was strung out behind. They were gaining. The brown mare, Simper, was first among them, and almost up level now. The water came and went. Then Liverpool, the stiffest fence on the course. After that they would be into the homestretch. If he could just hold his lead. In the corner of his eye he caught glimpses of the crowd flashing by on the far side. He could hear their cheers over the pounding of the hooves. Virginia Vanderbilt herself was there somewhere, along with the rest of the Great Neck smart set. And his mind turned, just for a moment, to the thought of all the glory that would soon be his. The silver cup. The kisses on the cheek and the claps on the back.
    And that was when it happened. C. H. Bell, riding Gold Van, bolted up the inside and beat him to the fence. The two horses clashed as they landed on the other side, and Kersey was forced wide. He swerved way off the racing line—off, in fact, across the course. The shouts of encouragement became screams of panic. Jay tried to rein back, but it was too late. He had lost control. The close-packed crowd scattered as his horse burst through the row of flags that marked the edge of the track. Gowns billowing, hats flying, they raced for the safety of the traps and carriages arrayed around the outfield.
    Jay forced Kersey back onto the track and whipped the horse hard into a hot finish. But he was way back when Gold Van broke the tape. Jay was still seethingat the presentation ceremony. He cursed under his breath as he watched Bell receive the trophy, and again out loud when one of the patrol judges hurried up to tell him he was officially disqualified. A few kind words from Virginia Vanderbilt soothed his wounded pride. She said that the race was “the most sensational of the day,” and the sweet smile she shot him as he spoke almost made it all seem worthwhile. Jay’s friends always said that few things mattered to him more than winning. Pretty women were one of them.
    Jay O’Brien grew up rich. He was born in New York on February 22, 1883, and enjoyed all the privileges his father had worked so hard to earn for his family. Miles O’Brien had emigrated from Ireland in the 1860s. His parents had wanted him to take a career in law, but instead he traveled, alone, to New York. He got a job as a clerk at H. B. Claflin & Co., a wholesale dry goods retailer in downtown Manhattan. But Miles was bound for better things. He worked his way up to the top of the company, and on the way he became a leader of the Fenian society Clan na Gael and an active member of the Irish Parliamentary Fund Association, which supported the campaign for home rule. An enlightened, compassionate man and a prominent independent Democrat, he moved into public service. When his friend William Russell Grace became the first Irish-born mayor of New York, he brought O’Brien up with him. He appointed him to the city’s board of education. There, Miles campaigned against overcrowding in classrooms and called for the introduction of school baths and free lectures for adults. He became president of the board in 1900.
    If that all sounds a little too clean for a man who successfully negotiated his way through the cut-throat world of Irish-American politics in late-nineteenth-century New York, there are hints of shadows in Miles’s story too. He certainly had his tangles in Tammany Hall, the Democratic society that controlled politics in New York City and State from the 1790s on. Tammany relied on support from the Irish immigrant community, and Miles was one of many men the society helped gain a foothold in American politics. By his time, it was infamous throughout the city for its corruption, graft, and internecine squabbling. In 1883, Miles was accused of being one of the organizers of the Fenian dynamite plot. He denied all involvement and told the
Boston Herald
that he was opposed to dynamite—that he believed “constitutional agitation”