*I had no idea. This is quite astonishing.
via @AllenVarney
http://www.believermag.com/issues/201205/?read=article_szerlip
(...)
"The game was entirely electrical and featured eight hundred cast-iron horses, each three inches long, all realistically painted. Each contender had a motor controlled by a rheostat dial set at a winding speed based on the horse’s past performance. Emerging from the stable, the horses lined up behind a thin steel gate, a device Geddes would claim predated by four years the introduction of electrical starting gates at nationwide tracks. The horses ran twenty abreast on pairs of copper rails, pulled by nearly invisible silk threads connected to unseen pulleys.
"Randomness was provided by the Chance Machine, a mechanism that worked against the individual motors. A second series of motors shuffled fourteen large ball bearings across the copper rails; the ball bearings completed the electrical circuit, which doubled a horse’s speed by one half-furlough. “Thus,” observed Time magazine, “any horse might suddenly frisk ahead, outdistancing rivals with a higher starting speed, only to ‘stumble’ in the middle of the race or ‘blow up’ at the finish.” They could even jump hedges and ditches. So exacting was the Chance Machine that it gave averages comparable to those on any recognized track. The entire Nutshell apparatus was reported in the press as having cost four thousand dollars, minus the considerable hands-on labor of Geddes and his minions. Lit and locked under glass, it was on view to all just beyond the finishing line.
"Every Thursday afternoon, for three consecutive springs and summers, the dials were tested and set. Every Saturday evening, eight races were run, beginning at 9 p.m. and shutting down (at least officially) at 1 a.m. Races were announced over an amplifier, and an authentic recording of racetrack bedlam, from shouting to the sound of horses’ hooves, lent atmosphere.
"An on-site printing press was kept busy cranking out rule sheets, term definitions, billboard cards, weekly event programs, forms for purchasing a stable and for buying, selling, or trading additional horses. All transactions were made through the racing secretary. Other game officials included stewards and a clerk of the course. A betting board at the rear of the room listed which horses were running, their past performances, and their odds to win or place. A notice board listed the purses, ranging from two to fifteen dollars. With the exclusion of breeding, weather conditions, and crooked jockeys, it was a live horse race in all the particulars.
"Un-run two-year-olds cost one dollar apiece, and their owners were responsible for naming them. Names tended toward the witty and the suggestive: Hotpants, Snuffsniffer, Off Color, Wet Kiss, Sugar Taffy. Alexander Woollcott christened all twenty in his stable after characters in Dickens novels. Naturalist William Beebe’s Arcturus (named after the steamship that carried his recent expedition to the Galápagos) quickly proved himself, winning thirteen of his first eighteen starts and placing in the others. Before the game was two months old, nearly one hundred people owned stables. The number would eventually double.
"It was strictly invitation only, and players approached their task with serious intent. Emotions ran high, fueled by prodigious amounts of alcohol. Rumor had it that, on one particular evening, three thousand dollars changed hands in a friendly wager. The boy from Newcomerstown, Ohio, whose grandfather spouted hellfire and brimstone and believed black snakes were the devil’s minions, was now playing host to an elite set of friends. Amelia Earhart and Cole Porter were known to stop by. Regulars included New Yorker founder Harold Ross, Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield, and theater critic Kenneth Macgowan.
"The game was also a magnet for Hollywood notables who happened to be in town, as thoroughbred racing wasn’t legalized in California until 1933. Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., King Vidor, Leslie Howard, Adolphe Menjou, Mr. and Mrs. Basil Rathbone, Natacha Rambova (the former Mrs. Rudolph Valentino), and Ethel Barrymore were among the silver-screen luminaries who crowded into Geddes’s basement...."
http://www.utexas.edu/opa/blogs/culturalcompass/tag/barbara-alexandra-szerlip-norman-bel-geddes/
