John Barton Townley, 34, is a rich Englishman with a Falstaffian laugh and a weak heart. Because of the heart, his doctor advised him to give up golf and rugger. So Townley, having studied the racing sheets as well as law at Cambridge, bought some race horses. Last week, at Newmarket, his weak heart thumped and bumped under a strain that might have told on stronger men.
His horse Sterope had just won the Cambridgeshire Stakes. The purse was a mere $12,273, but Townley stood to win a staggering $600,000 in bets. And the jockey on Royal Tara, which finished...
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