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BRIGHTON BBACH TRACK. Iw f r TLere is considerable speculation as to the , of state of the track at Brighton Beach this year, and the cause of its unusual speed and the records which have been reeled off by various . . , . te ten horses without cessation since the meeting . the opened. There has been a number of ideas . in given, some as authoritative, others simply p theory, and the facts in the matter are as fol- . the lows, as gleaned mainly from Track Superin- . the tendent Clare, who should surely know the in-side 46 of it all. It appears that for years past there were people All in the east, visitors and those who had jour-ueyed afield, who stated that as regards making a track the superintendents in the east were asleep, had not cut their milk teeth, and vari ous other playful suggestions. Certain it was of that at the western tracks records were made . again and again, until many of those for important distances were held by the west. These. . however, were always accepted with a grain of salt by the eastern men, for the simple reaBou that few of the western horses lived up to them si when the arjimals were brought east. I Mr. Clare then determined to see what he could do with the track at Brighton Beach. He first cleared off about four inches or more of , the old top dressing, which had been harrowed , over and over until it was as dead as Caesar, and then, putting the cushion into good shape, he redressed it to about three inches, and as soon as this was well settled by constant atten-tion, he began to harrow it very lightly, not more than an inch and a half or two inches, and this is the main reason, he claims, for the 1 phenomenally fast track this year. This track is a hard one to manipulate for various rea?on. Principal among these is the , f fact that it was originally sandy beach and is n still so constituted that with a field of eight or * ten horses galloping around the lower turn the , I earth can be distinctly felt to vibrate from the . * thud of their hoofs. Also because in the infield, 1 which was nothing but salt meadow originally, there is water to be obtained at a depth of a I I few feet, and when the "soc" or underwater is I * is high, as in wet spring or fall season, it lies . i almost on the surface. * It is an accepted fact that a track is always ~ fastest when new, and those who remember the . surroundings of the running on the iravesend track when it was first built, will admit that it was faster then than at the present time. It was then possibly the fast e.-t track in the east. Later Guttenberg cut -everal records, but these were mainly at the shorter distances, and this wa due to two advantages, one of which was I the very long stretch, and the other the not t ■ generally known fact that from the turn to 1 the wire, there was a steady and even gradient, i amounting to a five foot drop. Some years ago 1 a suggestion was made to remove the top dress- . j mg from the Gravesend track and sod it to a 1 j depth of eight inches, with sods placed with i 1 the roots uppermost, and it was said that such , * . a track would be so fast that "tin- horses would 1 j finish before they knew the flag had dropped." , it is the opinion of experienced men that while , j Buch a track would undoubtedly be last, it h 1 ■ •would work out in about ■ couple of years I ] owing to the top dressing being gradually forced 1 « into the rootmat, thus destroying the cushion 1 - on which it depended for its speed. , Thus the Brighton Beach track today is an 1 , improvement on the western tracks, and it t : would be interesting to see what some of the e .. western cracks could do on it against some of r j the eastern liyers. It will be ditlicult to get a ■ good average mile record— that is. comparative e with those obtained at other distances — because e of the turn being so close to the starting point, i. Iw f r , of . te ten . the . in p . the . the 46 All of . . si I , , which would prevent a horse, unless away in front, from striking his gait until considerable the distance had been covered. It is interesting to note that most of the rec- j ords now held have been made within the past years, those which rank further back being I 1 mile 500 yards of Bend Or, Saratoga. 1882. 2:104; 1 1-8 miles of Tristan. 1891, at Morris J Park.t :514 ; the 2 5-8 of Ten Broeck in 1876,in 4 :584 ; 1 2 3-4 of Hubbard, at Saratoga. 1873, in 4 :584 ; l half mile of Geraldine, at Morris Park. 189V*. seconds; 2 miles of Ten Broeck. 1877, against . time, in 3:274. and some at three miles and over, j others are more recent, all of which shows j that the modern track is considerably faster than those of the "good old days." It is also interesting to recall that on the old ] style, semi-hard tracks, there was little heard 1 bowed tendons, this being essentially a pro- j duct of the modern deep track : the hard track ] sooner or later affecting the shoulders, if any- 1 thing, but old timers will remember that the campaigners at the old fair tracks, where the j distance was half a mile on a track as hard as i stone, seldom had anything the matter with ; them, but just hammered away, season in and season out. Both extremes have been struck, from the hard track with little or no top dressing, to the deeper tracks, and now it seems as though the happy medium was about to be struck, with great gain to the eastern record hook. Therefore there is considerable credit to be given to Mr. Clare, and congratulations on his successful progressiveness.— Spirit of the Times.
