Sport: Reginald Vanderbilt

As it must to all men, Death came last week to Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt. He died at Portsmouth, R. I., in his 45th year, of a throat infection which had caused internal hemorhages.

A huge foreign motor car of primitive design, roaring by night through the streets of New Haven informed the inhabitants of that town, some 25 year ago, that Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt was going out for the evening. The same vehicle, roaring back through the dawn, let them know that he would be in for the day. Even at that time the press had begun to refer to him as “Reggie” and to point with horror to his unhallowed pleasures. His classmates, however, voted him “the most likely to succeed in life.”

Their prophecy proved correct.

Upon attaining his majority he inherited $10,000,000 from his father. He settled himself to the task of administering his fortune, and of developing by practice his proficiency in the several sports for which he had a natural aptitude. A capable polo player, a skilfull whip, a dashing motorist, he was also adept at cards.

District Attorney Jerome of Manhattan was trying to obtain evidence against Richard A. Canfield, famed gambler. Vanderbilt was known to be a frequenter of Canfield’s place; dowagers who had never set foot therein avowed that he had often lost as much as $75,000 in one evening. The attorney subpoenaed him as a witness. He, with a gentleman’s reticence for airing his losses in public, avoided the subpoena. Hundreds of detectives believing him to be concealed in his Manhattan house, beleaguered the place. The press played up the episode as a farce. Crowds gathered to stare; the announcers on sightseeing buses developed a new speech:

“LADies and gentlemen; that is Reggie Vanderbilt’s house. He is hiding in there. The detectives are waiting for him. But they won’t get him!”

Vanderbilt escaped in disguise so that he could attend the Philadelphia horseshow.

One of the leading horsemen of the U. S., he was President of the Association of American Horse Shows, the Hackney Horse Society and innumerable other equine organizations. During the War he issued a public plea for more horse-breeding which won general support from men of wealth throughout the U. S.

His first wife, nee Cathleen Neilson, divorced him in 1919. In 1923 he married Miss Gloria Morgan, daughter of Consul-General Harry Hayes Morgan; last year she bore him a daughter. Though still relatively a young man, the world in which he spent his money with such debonair magnificence and through which he raced in his roaring automobiles has largely vanished; even the scenes of his gayeties are being removed. Delmonico’s, where he gave numerous dinners, recently closed its doors; Madison Square Garden, at whose ringside his plump beetling face often brooded, has been pulled down.