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BURNS HANDICAP COMMENT The following is an aftermath of the Burns Handicap taken from a San Francisco paper of February 17 17Since Since the Burns Handicap has been run one hears all sorts of talk about the way it was won The big stake has been criticised from every stand ¬ point There are those who think Articulate would have walked in if he had gotten away and there are others who say he would not have had a chance anyhow Of course the handicapper comes in for a roast ¬ ing He always does Never yet have the weights for the Burns been made public that some one did not aU once set up the cry that this horse was thrownjin or that one was weighted out of it This season it was agreed that the weights were just ones Nothing good enough to win had his chances taken away by an excessive impost and nothing seemed to be favored in the matter of of weights weightsYet Yet now there are those who say handicapper Brooks made it impossible for Eonic to lose by put ¬ ting 98 pounds on her This seems to be a silly argument now The ring was filled with hundreds of shrewd judges of racing Saturday and they thought Articulates chances were about five cr six times as good as Eonics They thought Nones Cor rigan Black Dick and Frangible should beat the mare that won wonOf Of course it is a matter of regret that Articulate should have been left at the post Birkenruth seems to have lost all his form of last fall Every race he rode Saturday showed lack of intelligence and he alone is responsible for Articnlates failure to get away awayBut But one cannot but criticise the judgment which placed Woods on Greyfeld and Birkenruth on Artic ¬ ulate Of course Mr Smith owns Greyfeld entirely and in the event of his success would have captured the entire stake while if Articulate had won he would have had to divide with the men from whom he is leased Naturally Smith wanted his own horse which had been working splendidly to have the best possible chance But Greyfeld has shown all winter that he is a bad cripple and cannot fol ¬ low or set a fast pace and finish well also Woods got Greyfeld away in front and rode him a very good race but it was too fast a clip clipNones Nones lameness is not believed to be very serious He ran an exceedingly honest race considering everything On a fast track he would almost cer ¬ tainly have won Black Dick is another horse which would have been fighting for the money on a fast track He closed a tremendous amount of ground Both he and Nones are by Sir Dixon They run well in mud too but are slow beginners and a horse who has not speed at the very start is at a great disadvantage in sloppy going
