The game little girl from Paris has all the sympathy of the crowd, and many are convinced that the other riders are bent on doing her out of the race, by fair means or foul.
—“The Riders Fell at the Finish,” Minneapolis Times, September 7, 1898
Was Lisette really the fastest woman cyclist on the planet? Tillie Anderson, for one, was dubious and didn’t mind saying so. “I’ve seen Lisette,” Tillie said, “but can’t say much about her riding. She didn’t do any riding while I was around. She simply walked around the track.” As for Lisette’s impressive record of accomplishments, by now recounted so many times that most observers could recite them from memory, Tillie remained equally dubious. In her mind, Lisette hadn’t yet proven a thing. “I understand that she’s a fast rider,” Tillie acknowledged, “but why she’s called the champion of the world I don’t know. She’s never ridden against me and I’ve never ridden against her.”1
In addition to Lisette, something else novel to Minneapolis race fans made an appearance that week. Manager Jim Wirtensohn decided to try out a new point system, first devised in Des Moines earlier that summer. Most races drew the best crowds on opening night, Monday, and closing night, Saturday. For some time, managers had sought ways to fight the midweek dip by ensuring hard-fought and exciting races each and every night of the week. Competitors had little to gain by finishing hard on a Tuesday or Wednesday night, as long as they didn’t fall back a lap. All they really needed to do was conserve their strength for the sixth and final night. Lizzie Glaw epitomized this approach. A common managerial strategy to combat “loafing” during the week was to offer nightly prizes of $10 or $20 to the winner of each heat, but such prizes were small incentive, given that the weekly prize generally exceeded $200.
The point system gave actual value to each night’s finish. In Des Moines the four women were awarded four points for each first-place finish, three points for second place, two for third, and one for fourth. The idea was that if someone loafed along and finished third all week, it would be impossible for her to win on Saturday night. It’s hard to say how well the new system worked in Des Moines, however, because the four racers finished in the exact same order each night: Tillie, Bertha Wagner, May Allen, Ida Peterson.
In Minneapolis Wirtensohn announced that points there would be awarded in a similar fashion, but with six racers on the board, six points would be awarded for first, five for second, and so on. Local reporters lauded the new system, derisively citing the “disgusting practice of lagging and loafing until the final night, when the race is really fought and won.” Now every night would in effect be a separate race, and each night would count toward the overall contest. “At the end of the race the rider having the largest number of credits will be declared the winner,” explained the Sunday Times. “This will be an absolute safeguard, and will guarantee the patrons against disappointment.”
At stake, the promoters claimed, was the international championship of the world. Lisette would wear a tricolor sash and represent France. Tillie would race for Sweden, Ida Peterson for Norway, Clara Drehmel for Germany, and local gal Dottie Farnsworth for the United States. Lillie Williams was told that she would wear the Union Jack, as she had once won a title in England, but she would have none of it. “I rode in England under the American flag,” she said, “and that’s the flag I’m going to ride under here.”2
Four thousand people packed the Exposition Building Monday night to see how the great Lisette would fare against her American rivals—and how she’d handle the rougher, more competitive style of unpaced racing. It was a rude introduction. Lisette was given the post position to start, but within three laps Dottie charged to the front, followed by Lillie Williams and then Tillie. Fighting for position, Lisette suddenly went down hard—barely three miles in—and hurt her arm, but she gamely remounted within the two-minute allowance and regained her place among the leaders. Her husband, Émile, shouted hoarsely from inside the circle, and the Minneapolis fans rose as one to applaud her efforts. Surely she’d fallen before in Europe, but here it was as common as a flat tire and, with five other riders sharing the track, much more dangerous. Lisette had passed her first test.
Every rider but Clara Drehmel, who finished seven laps back, took turns in the lead. At one point Lillie Williams, who rode surprisingly well all night, burned out a tire, only to discover that her trainer had inexplicably neglected to prepare her a backup, and she lost over two miles while he made repairs. In the end, Tillie streaked past Dottie to take the lead for good, and “try as she might,” said the Times, “Lisette could not hold the pace.”3 Still, it was an excellent debut for Lisette; she and the other three leaders finished the night with forty-one miles and ten laps, nearly twenty-one miles an hour.
The Journal declared the women’s race “a spectacle well worth witnessing,” the highlight of the entire first day of the festival. The event was well managed, the crowd was respectful and appreciative, and there was “no doubt that this class of sport has taken a tight hold of the feminine element in the population.” The Journal reported the race’s lighter moments as well. Lisette’s husband shouted so much that he actually lost his voice, and he resorted to teaching Shorty Wirtensohn—the manager’s brother, acting as Lisette’s trainer—a few choice French phrases to shout to Lisette as she rode. But Shorty’s pronunciation was so atrocious that Lisette could only laugh at his futile attempts and “came near to losing a lap and only saved herself from a fall by tremendous effort.” The Journal also sounded a more ominous note, which turned out to be prescient. As the speeds indicated, the newly built track was very good, although “it could stand a good deal more raising on the outer edges, and if the managers are wise they will see to it before the start this evening.” The Journal’s suggestion, that the track wasn’t banked steeply enough to support the high speeds, turned out to be the story of the second night.4
After another back-and-forth affair Tuesday night, Lillie Williams and Clara Drehmel cleared the track for the final laps, and the four leaders soon pushed themselves to the physical limits of the track. At a certain speed on any track, centrifugal force wins out over gravity. Tillie led the way, with Dottie and Lisette bunched tightly behind her and Ida Peterson trailing closely after. On the very last lap, Lisette made a move to the outside, but Dottie held stubbornly to Tillie’s shoulder. As the three riders sprinted through the final turn into the homestretch, Dottie’s wheel, unable to hold the track, slipped, and Dottie fell lengthwise directly into Lisette’s path. “Before the horrified spectators realized what had happened,” reported the Times, “Lisette rode square over the prostrate girl.” Lisette pitched headlong onto the hard boards, and Ida plowed into the bunch as well, flying into the center of the ring, her fall softened somewhat by the sawdust there. Only Tillie escaped the brush, but her momentum carried her all the way around the track in a matter of seconds, and on her return she narrowly missed the pileup and the rush of spectators who’d jumped the rail to help the fallen racers.
Dottie and Lisette were badly hurt. Dottie’s “moans of pain were pitiful to hear,” and Lisette was unconscious for several minutes. It was half an hour before Dottie could be moved. It looked as though her leg was broken. “Oh, it’s terrible,” exclaimed her mother, who’d made her way down from the stands. “I’ll never let her go on the track again.”5
Most of the reporters stuck with Lisette, who was carried to a taxi and taken to the Sanders hotel, where she and Émile were staying. “She bore the journey without a single cry of pain or word of complaint,” said the admiring Times, “although her head was covered with bruises and her limbs with deep cuts.” The reporters watched as Shorty Wirtensohn dressed and bandaged her wounds. “On her left arm, at the elbow, was a cut four inches long and fully an inch deep, which must have been made by the sharp edge of a pedal. There were eight long deep cuts on her hips and limbs, and a dozen smaller wounds, besides a great bruise on her head.”6 But that wasn’t all: “Two very painful cuts were also found on her right hand,” added the Tribune, “which she had thrown out in an effort to save herself. The calf of her left leg was severely cut, and both of her hips were bruised and bleeding.”7
“I am not tired,” Lisette insisted, her eyes bright with defiance. “Never mind if it hurts. I must ride again tomorrow night. I will not have them trick me.”8
With these words, the narrative of the week was set: it would be the embattled Lisette against the conspiring Americans. In her injured state, Lisette unleashed a series of charges the reporters picked up and repeated for the rest of the race: Dottie Farnsworth was less intent on beating Tillie than on squeezing Lisette out of position and preventing her from charging ahead at the end. Lillie Williams, with no realistic chance of winning, was simply Tillie’s hired pacemaker. “The race up to the time of the accident was exciting,” said the Tribune, “but it could be plainly seen that every effort to pocket Lisette was being made by Anderson and Williams.”9
“That Williams was hired by Anderson to set the pace,” Lisette insisted, “but I will beat them yet.”10
The Journal took the opportunity to blame this kind of rough riding on the sport’s lack of official oversight. “Of course, as long as this sort of racing is permitted, there will be accidents, and the fact that women are the contestants can scarcely be taken into consideration from a sporting point of view, but there is every evidence that last night’s fearful crash, in which a couple of the girls were horribly cut and bruised, was directly the result of tactics which would not be permitted for an instant on any track subject to control.” Dottie Farnsworth was responsible for the crash, the Journal believed, and what’s more, she was clearly following the instructions of her handlers: “Whenever an attempt was made to pass her she swerved across the track in such a way as to bar out her pursuer, and every time she performed this trick there was an excellent chance for broken necks.” Ida Peterson, who the Journal said “admits that she prefers defeat to burial,” would wisely fall back whenever the bunch got tight and dangerous. Tillie was fast enough to stay ahead of the fray. The rider who bore the brunt of Dottie’s unsportsmanlike ways, the Journal said, was poor Lisette, who “finds herself working against the entire racing gang” and “takes her life in her hands every time she goes on the track here.” “If the referee had done his duty,” the paper concluded, “he would have disregarded the wailings of Farnsworth and her coterie, and have ruled her off the track for the remainder of this race, at least. It was a clear case of foul riding.”11
The injured riders managed to return for the third night—even Dottie, despite her mother’s protests. But she suffered through the entire evening with what she described as a broken rib, a bruised and badly cut knee, a sore hip, and a sore back.12 And this was only four weeks after she’d severely injured her knee in New Orleans prior to her big match race with Tillie.
Lisette, her own bike damaged beyond repair, borrowed a Syracuse from Jim Wirtensohn and did her best. She was understandably stiff at first but loosened up after several laps, and the crowd of five thousand, already disposed in her favor, fully took up her cause. Every time the other riders rebuffed Lisette’s efforts to take the lead, the people hissed with indignation, and the few times Lisette managed to make it to the front, they rose up and cheered. Lillie Williams came in for the most criticism. Fans and reporters alike felt that whenever Lillie fell back from the pace, which she held for much of the night, she let Tillie and Dottie, but not Lisette, move ahead of her. “She had a perfect right to do as she did,” conceded the Tribune, “but there are unwritten rules in connection with bicycle racing, as there are with everything else,” and one of those rules was to allow all riders equal access to the front.13 Time and again Lillie appeared to shut Lisette out, and each time “she was greeted with a storm of hisses.” Finally, she was reprimanded by the referee. “It was clearly discrimination against the French girl,” said the Times. “Everyone admitted it except Williams’ trainer and Phil Sjöberg, Anderson’s husband. Dad Moulton said: ‘Well, you couldn’t expect that they would do anything else. They aren’t going to take any chances with a rider of her reputation.’” “It is a sad commentary on American spirit,” said the Times, “that one little French girl who comes to a strange country to contest with American riders in a race and makes the gamest fight ever seen on a track should not be allowed fair play.”14
All of this confirmed Lisette as the crowd favorite. “One’s sympathies,” said the Tribune, “are always with the oppressed and downtrodden.”15 It was another close finish, this time with no accidents, and Tillie for the third straight night crossed the tape in first place, followed by Dottie, Ida, and Lisette. Despite her fourth-place finish, Lisette enjoyed the loudest ovation as the riders dismounted. “Hundreds of people crowded about her,” the Journal reported, “saying all sorts of nice things in English. She is utterly ignorant of the language, but evidently understood the sentiment animating the crowd and she said pretty things right back in her native tongue.”16 A good number of Lisette’s supporters, according to the Times, were women who “rushed up to her and grasped her hands, pouring out words of congratulations and friendship which the little French woman, though she could not understand a line, replied to with a bright smile.”17
Halfway through the twelve-hour race, the leaders were still averaging over twenty miles an hour. Just as it had in Des Moines, the score by points was becoming lopsided, as Tillie had won all three nights. She had eighteen points, and Dottie had fifteen. Lisette and Ida were tied with eleven. “Anderson will undoubtedly win the race,” observed the Tribune, “barring possible accidents. She is the fastest one in the bunch by long odds and needs no assistance from the others to defeat Lisette.”18
Meanwhile, the Festival of Fire was in full swing. On Tuesday night patrons were disappointed by a concert in the auditorium that seemed a bit underrehearsed. The biggest draws were the Streets of Cairo and the Turkish Theater. During the race Wednesday night, the management announced that everyone in attendance would receive free admission to the other floors in the Exposition Building and that the Boston Ladies’ Military Band would be playing in the auditorium. It was definitely ladies’ night at the Expo.
With the spotlight of the racing world squarely trained on his adopted home of Minneapolis, H. O. Messier wrote from remote Escanaba in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where for six weeks he’d been conducting races with Lizzie Glaw and a host of unknowns. He attempted to redirect the spotlight by offering Lizzie for a straight-up, best two out of three match race against the winner of the Minneapolis race. He said he’d be back in town the following week and would build a track himself if the one in the Exposition Building was no longer available. Unfortunately for Messier, Lizzie Glaw was not much on the minds of the Minneapolis racers or the thousands of fans caught up in the race in progress. Nothing ever came of the match race.
The talk of Minneapolis was of the battles between Lisette, Lillie, and Dottie and the phenomenal riding of Tillie Anderson. “This talk of foul riding is absurd,” Jim Wirtensohn said when pressed about the aggressive tactics. “Lisette has never ridden without pacemakers, and as yet she hasn’t learned to use her head when in a race of this kind.” Others agreed. “She rides a pretty race, but riding here is different than it is in France,” said Archie Townsend, Clara Drehmel’s manager and husband. “We have a half dozen girls over here that can defeat her.” Local rider Sam Beck explained that here in America, Lisette was “up against a new game. She’s handicapped by not having pacers. . . . Following the pace is much easier than trying to beat a bunch of riders all after the same thing.”
“I know there’s been a lot of kicking,” said race referee J. B. Loomis, “but as far as I can see there has been no foul riding. There’s been tricky riding, but this a rider has a right to do. Lisette in a race with any one of the riders alone would win, but in a bunch she is at a disadvantage, being unused to the American style of riding.”
It was generally agreed that Lisette would soon catch on and ride equal with Dottie, Lizzie, and the other top riders. “I don’t think there’s any rider in the country that can defeat Anderson,” Dad Moulton said, “but in due justice to Lisette I will say that when she gets used to our style of riding, she will prove a dangerous rival.”
Tillie obviously didn’t feel threatened. “Lisette is outclassed,” she said bluntly. She dismissed the suggestion that she’d conspired with Lillie Williams to keep Lisette down. “I’m riding my own race,” she said, “and all this talk about me paying another rider is false.” She added that she had no hard feelings toward the newcomer and wouldn’t mind seeing her take second place in the race.
There was no denying Lisette’s popularity with the crowds. “The American people like to worship foreigners,” explained Ida Peterson. “After this, when they see the mistake, and that we have better riders here than they have in other countries, they will give credit where it is due.” Ida, in fourth place behind Lisette, was less generous than Tillie. “I think Lisette is the foulest rider I ever saw,” she said. “She has a way of elbowing that she can’t make go, and that’s why she’s sore. I hope she’s defeated.”19
Lillie Williams wrote a letter to the Times, protesting the charges that it and other newspapers had levied against her. “Not one of the riders entered in this contest has approached me on the subject of pace,” she wrote. “Neither can I be bought.. . . I set a great deal more than my share of the pace. I also won fairly in sprints from the outside, for which I am not given credit. When I entered this contest it was my intention to do my best, win or lose, and make it a race, so far as in my own power, from start to finish. This I have done and no impartial judge can accuse me of riding anything but a fair, lady-like race, which I shall continue to do.”20
As the Wirtensohns had hoped, attendance remained strong all week. On Thursday all thirty-five hundred seats were sold, and another thousand spectators squeezed in as standing room only. It’s unlikely the new point system had anything to do with the crowds, however. According to the Minneapolis Times, this was “the most aggressive race since this style of wheeling became popular,” and the city was riveted.21
Thursday’s heat passed without incident until the final five or six laps. Tillie had again worked her way into the lead, with Dottie, Ida, and Lisette trailing in tight formation. With the crowd urging her on, Lisette rose up the incline and strained inch by inch to overtake Ida. She then pulled even with Dottie’s outside shoulder and managed to hold that position for another two laps—when something happened that caused her to give way and drift down into third place. As soon as the riders crossed the finish line, Referee Loomis called the judges together. Loomis thought he’d seen Dottie elbow Lisette during that final push. But one of the other judges thought Lisette had done the elbowing, not Dottie. The third judge had seen nothing. And so it was quickly decided: Tillie was first, Dottie second, and Lisette third, just as they’d finished. Lisette was furious. “Farnsworth fait comme ça,” she said, demonstrating to the judges how Dottie had prevented her from getting past. “C’est toujours comme ça!”
The reporters—and the Minneapolis crowd—sided firmly with Lisette against the hometown heroine. “Dottie Farnsworth will probably get second,” the Times acknowledged, “which she does not deserve. Dottie limped out from her dressing room last night before the race, and mounting her wheel with an expression of excruciating agony, rode slowly around to warm up. The audience tendered her no sympathy.”
“It is surprising,” the paper continued, referring also to Lillie Williams, “that the two riders who have made it their boast that they are American born, and who wear the American colors in the race, should be the ones to display the decidedly un-American tactics which have been employed against Lisette from the start.”22
The next morning, an affronted Dottie sent a blistering letter to the Times. “To say that your article, Mr. Editor, ‘knocked me silly’ is putting it very mildly,” she began. “You not only showed a very un-American spirit toward me, but you said things which no gentleman would print about any man, woman or beast. Is it because you want to put me out of the racing business that you treat me in this manner? Or, perhaps, I have at some time offended you, and this is the way you are getting back at me. Do you consider it manly or fair treatment to me to do as you did this morning?”
Then Dottie went on the offensive. “I understand,” she wrote, “that the reporter who takes notes nightly at the races is a Frenchman, and this in itself ought to convince the public why I am treated as I am. Lisette is a good rider; no one can dispute that fact, but I do not think she can defeat Anderson or myself, and do not hesitate in saying so.”
Dottie then turned her attention to Tillie. “I am a Minneapolis girl, American born, and I want to see the best woman win; and I will say right here that I am certain that the best one is to win, notwithstanding the fact that Anderson is the only one of the four leaders who has not had a fall in this race to hurt her chances of winning first. . . . I also notice in the Times this morning that Miss Anderson has said she wanted to see Lisette win second place, but I had thought Miss Anderson was more of an American citizen than that. However, nothing more could be expected from her, as she has always done her utmost to hurt me in races, and I really never expected anything different from her than to hear what she said this morning.”23
Not even Dottie questioned Tillie’s front-runner status. “Barring accidents,” the Times asserted before Friday’s start, “nothing can prevent Anderson from winning the event.” Given the aggressive first four days of the race, it was hardly surprising that Friday began with another hard tumble—and this one did involve Tillie. Lisette started the evening with a spurt to the front and held it for nearly two miles. Then Lillie Williams, who all week had been accused of jockeying Lisette, made a charge to the front. She rounded the third turn—the same turn where Dottie slipped Tuesday night—and went down, “headlong on the track.” Before she could rise or roll out of the way, Lisette, Tillie, and Ida plowed into her and went down as well. Dottie swerved high and brushed against the rail, avoiding the heap, while Clara Drehmel rode over Tillie’s front wheel but escaped a fall.24
The trainers rushed onto the track. Tillie had gone down the hardest, according to the Journal, “and it was thought for a moment that she would have to stop riding.”25 But she cried out, “Clear off the wheels, boys! Clear off the wheels!”26 Dottie and Clara continued their loop around the track as the injured women crawled toward the infield. “You get the wheels off,” Tillie shouted again to the trainers. “We’ll take care of ourselves!”27 And the women did make it off, just as the remaining two riders passed back around.
Lillie Williams had struck her kneecap hard against the boards. Tillie and Ida had hurt their hips. Ida also gashed the fingers of her left hand, “and blood was flowing freely.”28 Lisette landed on her head, “as usual,” said the Times, and lay stunned in the sawdust. The wound on her right arm, from Tuesday night, had reopened as well. Even so, Shorty Wirtensohn picked her up and placed her on a reserve cycle, and she wobbled back onto the track. So did Lillie. Tillie was clearly suffering, but “she made no complaint,” and after Phil retrieved her spare bike, she joined the others. Bruised and bloody Ida told Dad Moulton she’d had enough, but he lifted her back onto her seat. All four of the fallen riders made it back on the track before the two minutes were up, and the race continued.29
The finish that night, everyone agreed, was the best of the week—“by far the most exciting ever seen in Minneapolis,” exclaimed the Tribune. Lisette tried a new strategy, starting her final sprint six minutes before the final bell, shortly after Lillie and Clara had cleared the track for the leaders. First she passed Ida. Then she kept to the outside and slowly gained on Tillie, the crowd cheering louder with every advance. Lisette’s front wheel overlapped Tillie’s rear wheel, and Lisette bent even lower over her handlebars. Then she pulled even, and “the expression on her face told of the terrible effort she was making.” Then her back wheel pulled even with Tillie’s front wheel, and the ovation drowned out the music of the band. Finally, she shot down between the two black lines, securing first place, and the hall exploded.30
There were still three minutes to go. As the band pounded out the beat, the four leaders continued around and around, Lisette holding the pace to a dead sprint. She was grinding now, her face contorted, but Tillie and Dottie looked fresh behind her. Had Lisette started too early? She pumped out another half dozen laps—a minute on the clock—but then Dottie moved out from third place and gradually overtook first Tillie and then Lisette. Lisette held on to second place. One minute to go. Phil then shouted to Tillie as she passed the scorers’ stand, and Tillie showed everyone that she had one more gear—one more burst of speed. Over the next three laps, and with just two laps to spare, Tillie made it past Dottie into the lead. Ida pushed hard for third, but Lisette was able to hold her off.
After her herculean effort, Lisette must have been disappointed. She finished third once again. “It was all right,” she said afterward. “No one played any tricks.”31
The finish was indeed pure sport, plain and simple—six minutes of all-out sprinting by four very determined racers. Tillie was so spent that she had to be helped to her carriage. But she had to be pleased. It was her fifth straight first-place finish. She’d now completed over 205 miles in ten hours. Under the new point system, her lead was virtually insurmountable: with thirty points to Dottie’s twenty-five, Tillie could lose only by not finishing the race.
It’s hard to say what Jim Wirtensohn would have done had Lisette or Dottie edged out Tillie on the final night. Tillie would have technically won the race on points, but the audience was only interested in who crossed the tape first. Fortunately for him, Tillie made it a clean sweep and won her sixth straight heat.
Wirtensohn had squeezed even more seats into the building, and a reported five thousand fans sat, stood, and stomped through the two-hour finale. Hundreds more, unable to get in, milled outside to await the results. There was an extra band as well, the Newsboys, and the two outfits traded numbers all night, keeping the energy high. The women needed it, too: after the grueling week, they were bruised and battered. Dottie, with her fractured rib, struggled throughout and rarely took the pace. Lillie Williams, with her sore knee, made the required 225 miles and left the track after only an hour.
Lisette, undoubtedly energized by the constant chants and cheers on her behalf, set the pace for sixteen of the forty-one miles the four leaders covered. “It was,” said the Times, “a Lisette crowd.” The applause started when she appeared on the track, and it really never let up. Every time she jumped into the lead, the crowd went wild.
With six minutes left, the crowd started a chant of “Lisette, Lisette,” but on this night she knew to wait until the final two minutes before making her charge to the tape. Tillie was ready when she started, but to Lisette, Tillie didn’t matter: it was between Lisette and “her rival,” Dottie. When Lisette pulled even with and then passed Dottie in the final sprint, the Times reported, “there was one continuous roar which did not cease for over five minutes.” Lisette then chased Tillie for the final three laps but could do no better than lapping her rear wheel. Half a circuit back, Dottie found herself in a neck-and-neck battle with Ida, who managed to push ahead to finish in third place, leaving Dottie in the unfamiliar ranks of the second tier.
The jubilant festival crowd poured down onto the track. Lisette was surrounded by well-wishers shaking her hand, chanting her name, expressing congratulations. She was “fresh as a daisy,” pushing her way through the crowd, loaded with flowers. “Her journey to her carriage was a triumphal march,” said the Times, “and the street for over a block from the building was lined with people who cheered frantically as she drove past.”
Tillie won the $300 prize plus another $100 for breaking what the Wirtensohns called the American twelve-hour record of 246.7 miles. (Tillie had ridden farther several times in 1897—in Detroit in April, in Grand Rapids in May, and in St. Louis and Cleveland in December—but apparently those results were by now either unknown or unrecognized.) The Times said Tillie was “without doubt the fastest rider in America today.”
Tillie’s record breaking notwithstanding, the postrace talk was all about Lisette. Manager Jim Wirtensohn called her a wonder. “In a hundred-mile straight-away race,” he said, “there would only be one woman left on the track.” Several observers noted again that she was still learning the American style of racing, suggesting that her troubles this week had less to do with Lillie and Dottie than with her own lack of racing acumen. “One thing Lisette should do,” one trainer said, “is ride a little farther away from her competitors, so that when passing them no elbow bruises could occur, and in following a leader up she should go closer and thereby save being frozen out of position.” Once she mastered these strategies, she’d challenge even Tillie for the world’s title. And for that, concluded the Times, “Shorty Wirtensohn is the happiest man in Minneapolis today.”32