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PROPOSED TURF REFORMS. We shall probably see two important moves made by the Jockey Club in the next twelve months, perhaps much sooner. The necessity of restricting two-year-old racing is so apparent that, despite internal difficulties, some action on the matter cannot be long deferred. The other thing is the shortening of meetings. The matters dovetail into each other. Both have been exploited repeatedly in the Journal and the arguments need not be rehearsed, but, briefly, our two-year-olds are raced to a standstill, and on this account, not because our thoroughbred stock is deteriorating, our three-year-olds and upward are lacking in class. Then, as to the long meetings, they have been brought about by a variety of causes. The distances between tracks have been considered too long to admit of frequent change of scene, stabling has been free, and. so on. But there is another side to the matter which is gradually but surely beginning to be regarded as having some weight. It stands to reason that the longer a meeting is the greater is the chance for horses to display in and out form, as they will surely do, except with the very best of them, if continually raced together. As for the matter of distance between courses, that has always been greatly overestimated. There is no necessity for a trainer to take his entire stable along when a new meeting opens. Let him take only the horses he expects to race at such a meeting, and it follows that the shorter the meeting the less the number of such horses is likely to be. As for the distance between the courses, racing in the east is, as a matter of fact, carried on within a comparatively small radius. Saratoga is a bit further away, but still at no great distance, while Washington might be treated as an exception and given its twelve days in the spring and fall. So far as the other courses are concerned there is no valid reason why any meeting should extend over more than six days, the inside of a week. The advantages are apparent. The constant change of scene would increase the publics zest for the sport, and the brevity of the meetings would minimize the chance for those odious comparisons of form that have done so much ;o harm the turf in recent years. New York Journal.
