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ABUSI M KACBHOBSK,*. Commenting editorially on an incident of the recent Aqueduct meeting, the Horse Fancier very correctly points out a feature of racing that lies easily within the power of racing judges and stewards to eliminate. The article in question says : "While the sporting scribes in the daily papers last week poured forth all sorts of fulminations against Maher, the jockey, for brutally beating the colt Neponset over the head when he bolted in a race at Aqueduct on Tuesday, not one has put the blame where it really belongs, and that is upon the shoulders of the stewards. Such acts have been passed over far too often in other years, and Maher is by no means the only boy who liaa offended in this respect. That his performance of Tuesday was made possible, or that he dared attempt it, however much he was provoked, is due solely and simply to neglect of a plain duty upon the part of the stewards of the day upon previous occasions, to punish summarily and severely the jockey who so far forgot himself as tomaltreat an unfortunate dumb beast and to outrage the sensibilities of every onlooker. Every such incident occurring upon a racetrack is due to lack of discipline from the stewards, and any condonation of such offence is proof positive of their incompetency. That the offender is a leading jockey makes it but the more essential that his penalty shall be a serious one, and such as would without doubt have been laid upon an unfortunate apprentice or deckhand had he been the one in fault. "Aside from this noticeable instance of abuse, there will not infrequently be seen cases at our leading racetracks, where beaten horses are flogged and spurred when far back in the ruck, and horribly punished simply because they have not run as well as the rider and his betting friends had anticipated. It is safe to predict that neither of the luckless dead-heaters of Tuesday will recover from their gruelling in a hurry, if, in fact, they ever do. If repeating two-yaar-olds at five furlongs in May be sport, then deliver us from all forms of racing. "What with being broken in about half the time the task should occupy; tried as yearlings and re-tried, at all sorts of preposterous distances; mauled about at the post, jerked and flogged ; punched and whipped and when they have no earthly chance of winning ; raced frequently when sore, and in the case of youngsters, bucked, and raced ten times when they should start once ; no wonder the most important part of a trainers outfit is a pair of blinkers, and no marvel that the form of our horses is as bewildering as it is. changeable — for how can any horse give his true running when, the moment he strikes the stretch, the memory of past butchery impels him to look for a hole to dive into?"
