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COMMANDOS FCTKRK. Not at all pleasing news it was to lovers of . high-class racing to learn that the remarkable two-year-old Commando, acknowledged to be by far the best of his age as yet shown this year, will be sent to England as soon as James K. Keene realizes that his excellence warrants it. If Commando is good enough for English racing he is none too good for Americans to pay high admission fees to look at and to admire. This is the drawback to really high-class sport in this country. When a horse shows form good enough he is at once canvassed as a possibility for the English classics. With a continual winnowing out of the best horses, what can be the result to the American turf? Is it to become mediocre I That is the question now agitating thinking men, and that is one of the reasons why those men will advocate Perry Belmonts proposal to the Jockey Club, asking that more weight for age races be placed upon the programs. There are three great races annually run in England by three-year-olds and upward, of the value of #0.000 each, and it is said that Commando is engaged in every one of these races in 1901. There are also the Derby, St. Leger. Grand Prix de Paris and other very rich stakes for three-year-olds, all of them surpassing in value anything in America, for the Realization has been gradually dwindling in value. The only stake for three-year-olds and upward which we have in America to which one can point with pride because it approaches the weight for age idea is the Annual Champion Stake, value 5,-000. which will be run for the first time this year. It is a fixture of the Coney Island Jockey Club, for which that association is entitled to the gratitude of every turfman in the country. It will be run on Saturday, September 8, and such horses as Ethelbert. Jean Beraud, Prince of Melbourne. Chacornac, Disguise II. now in England, Ildrim. Missionary, David Garrick, Standing. Rockton and others are engaged. The distance is two and a juarter miles, and the scale of weights is favorable at that time of year to an unpenalized three-year-old. If we had more races of this character there would not be so much danger of our racing deteriorating.— New York Herald.
