An Argentine Implicates Dr. Gerard

With an agonized mixture of loyalty and feelings of betrayal, an Argentine veterinarian acknowledged tonight that his friend and sometime employer, Dr. Mark Gerard of Muttontown LI, had once asked him to find a ‘cheap’ horse with markings similar to those of a good horse Gerard had already decided to buy.

He spoke of the Argentine horses Chirico and Sundoro which were acquired by him for Gerard for shipment to the United States. He said Dr. Gerard first decided to buy Chirico, a 5-year-old who had won three or four races here and earned about $18,000. He described the horse as a reddish bay without white markings.
While Chirico was waiting for a place on a cargo plane to the United States, the vet was surprised by a call from Dr. Gerard who told him that his wife wanted a saddle horse and asked him to find a cheap thoroughbred, specifying that it, too, be a bay without white markings.

“I was somewhat suspicious, because in quarter-horse races down here they sometimes switch animals, and the easiest ones to switch are those without markings,” he said. However, he said, he went about fulfilling the request and soon found Sundoro, a 6-year-old dark bay without markings who had won one race in an undistinguised career.

“I don’t know what happened with those horses in the States,” the vet went on. “But I’m very concerned that there may be a problem because I am concerned about the reputation of Argenine horses. This is the only way I can find for washing away my stupidness. I was used by Mike Gerard as a useful idiot.”

Ex NYT 11/9/77

An Appeal To Girls On ‘Minnesota Strip’

Two Minneapolis police officers, in an unusual mission, wee prevented yesterday by heavy rains from beginning a search along Eighth Avenue’s notorious ‘Minnesota Strip’ for Midwestern teenagers who have become prostitutes in New York.

“There is a no-strings-atttached safety valve for any young woman who want to return home,” said Lieut. Gary McGaughey in his appeal to hundreds of teenagers from the Minneapolis area believed to have been lured into lives of prostitutes here.

‘Safe houses” have been established in Minneapolis partly because many parents refused to accept the teen-age girls after learning that they had been prostitutes.

NYT Raab 11/8/77

Into Each Life ‘Some’ Must Fall, But Really

And the rains came. In drizzles and torrents, gales and buckets, the rains came, bringing hardship and loss to hundreds and soggy, sodden inconvenience to almost everyone else. It rained cats and dogs, lizards and frogs. Into each life some must fall. Lovely for ducks. Etc.

Swepts by high winds, more than five inches of rain flooded gutters and basements, highways and byways, soaking raiment, swelling streams, stalling cars, slowing trains and closing schools.

On city streets, stranges commiserated. On subways, soaked to the skin, they smiled and shrugged. In the suburbs, high winds and fallen tree limbs toppled power lines. Leaves clogged the drains. And still it rains.

excerpt from Carey Winfrey NYT 11/08/77

Rain and High Winds Lash Area, Causing Floods and Train Delays

5” of rain and gale-force winds battered the metropolitan area yesterday, and the National Weather Service said the storm would last at least until the early morning hours today. Flooding was widespread.

On the streets of downtown Manhattan, it was a day of ruined umbrellas as winds of 30 miles an hour and more whipped around the tall buildings.

excerpt from Frank Prial NYT 11/8/77

Investigators Fly to Uruguay For Clues to Racing Mystery

A five-man task force, armed with photographs and paternity-testing gear, flew to Uruguay last night in a attempt to unravel the bizarre horse racing affair that may come to be known as the Case of the Dead Ringer.

A top-flight Uruguyan horse named Cinzano, whom Gerard allegedly destroyed June 12 because it suffered a broken skull in an accident, is believed to have won a race at Belmont on September 23rd – racing under the name of Lebon, a mediocre animal.

Meanwhile, a London-based insurance company had paid Cinzano’s owner $150,000 on the ‘death’ of the horse.

The horse known as Lebon was so overlooked by bettors that it paid $116 for a $2 win bet. The board contends that Gerard was the single largest bettor on the horse, collecting about $77,000 after making several trips to the $50 window rather than placing one large bet at one time.

At most major tracks in the United States, American-bred horses may not compete unless their lips have a permanently tattooed identification number.
South American horses are not tattooed.

ex NYT 11/3/77

Tapestry Stolen From St. John the Divine

A valuable 17th-century tapestry was stolen and two others were damaged between Monday night and yesterday morning in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

The stolen tapestry, woven in 1661 from a cartoon by Raphael, was one of a set of two hanging over a tomb. The cathedral put the value of the stolen tapestry which measured 7 x 12 at more than $20,000. A detective put the figure at $30,000.

There was a broken window in the basement indicating that the vandals had entered that way. But the police also theorized that the thieves could have been in church Monday evening and hidden there. It was easy for them to leave because all the doors open freely from the inside.

excerpt from E. Perlmutter NYT 11/2/77

Stolen Pipes of Organ May Produce Illicit Air

Officials at the University of Miami think that a student is stealing pipes from the organ at the Episcopal chapel to use as marijuana-smoking ‘bongs.’

Fourteen of the pipes, valued at $600 and ranging in length up to three and a half feet have been taken since the beginning of class.

“It’s actually a possibility,” said David Wike, campus security director. “Some guy will get a crazy idea and do something like that.”

He said bongs and other marijuana paraphenalia were outlawed in dormitories this year.

excerpt from NYT 11/2/77