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THE COI.T HERItlU. The offer of ,000 by the Worth Jockey Club for a race between Hermis and McChesney, while liberal in itself, will not be likely to induce the sending of Hermis west. Perhaps an offer of 0,000 added to a sweepstakes of ,500 each might prove more effective. Hermis has engagements in the Ramapo Handicap and Fordbam Handicap at Morris Park, both of which are sot for decision October 23, and in one of which he is likely to Btart. Beyond these he has no other engagements and there is no good reason why Mr. Bell might not send him to Chicago if sufficient inducement was proffered. The Worth Jockey Club might very well increase its offer, for the public would pay the money back at the gate beyond doubt. As tending to show what is thought of Hormis down east the following from the Evening Sun concerning his great race in the Mamaroneck Handicap a few days since is worth reading: "Metropolitan racegoers are proud of Hermis and pleased that his owner, Mr. Louis V. Bell, is the possessor of such a good horse. Man and horse have commended themselves to turfmen generally the man by his insistent perseverance in the face of a thousand obstacles which beset his pathway to racing success, and the horse by his splendid i speed and courage. When Hermis raced to victory in the Mamaroneck Handicap at a mile and a quarter, run over the Morris Park course yesterday, he placed another nail in the oft repeated libel that patrons of the sport have no thought but of their pockets. No man with red blood in his veins could not look upon this clean limbed, stout hearted thoroughbred, with his splendid action and space devouring stride, and not admire him. That is why there was an ovation for Hermis when he led his field home, and an enthusiastic cheer for him when his boy trotted him back to the stand. The best tribute that can be paid to Hermis and his Mamaroneck triumph is to be found in the statement that it set turfmen to wondering how t good a horse he really is. It may be that some-; where in America there is a horse that can race faster and farther than Hermis, but if any such there be his true form has been disguised successfully. In the horse world Mr. Bells colt is the idol of the hour, and he has earned his right to a place in the temple of turf fame by performances as great as any ever shown by a throe-year-old on an American race course. "What horses did Hermis beat? The four-year-olds Warranted and Royal, and the five-year-olds Advance Guard, Herbert and Carbuncle. Not much to beat, perhaps, in a race at weight for age, but to defeat under the conditions on which the three-year-old Hermis met them a stupendous task. To that tried and true campaigner Advance Guard a horse to be reckoned with the best in a race over a distance of ground conceded ten pounds; to Royal he gave seventeen pounds; to Herbert, now sadly fallen from his high estate, eighteen pounds; to Carbuncle thirty-one pounds, and to Warranted forty-seven pounds;! Despite the tremen dous task set for him and despite the fact that the odds about him lengthenedfrom 8 to 5 to 2 to 1, those who have watched him closely never faltered in their faith that he would show the way to the wire. Royal and Herbert tried to race him off his feet in the early part of the contest, and the featherwoighted Warranted tackled hirrr in most determined fashion at the finish. He was more than a match for all of them. He spurned them as if they were of another and lower order. He raced all around them in the first mile, he ran over them in the stretch, and when called on to stall off Warranteds challenge at the finish he responded in a style that left no room for doubt as to his class. "Before the race there was some doubt as to whether a three-year-old could take up the stiff impost of 126 pounds and concede so much weight to a field of older horses in a race at a mile and a quarter, which is the standard handicap distance for horses in the all-aged division. After tho race had been run and won, a doubt still remained and it resolved itself into this question: How much more weight could Hermis have taken up and won? In the mind of the writer there is not so much as the shadow of a doubt that he could have taken up 140 pounds and piloted his field home. If the running of the Mamaroneck and the victory of Hermis demonstrated one thing more clearly than another, it is that by no difference of weight, within reason, can a good horse and a bad horse be brought together. "Then there is the young man Rice to be considered. Rice is Mr. Bells regular stable jockey, and ho had the honor of guiding Hermis in the Mamaroneck. But all the honors of the race belong to Hermis to his dazzling speed and his superb courage. It would be the height of irony to say a word of praise for Rices handling of the colt, and, therefore none will be said here. All the praise belongs to the colt himself and to trie eever trainer who fitted him for the race, J. H. McCormick. Rice lost ground on all the turns, permitted the colt to fall back when there was no reason or excuse for doing so, and took all sorts of liberties with him. If Hermis could have been beaten Ricas slovenly jockey-ship, if jockeyship it could have been called, would have done the trick. But Hermis was not to be humiliated in such company. Despite the dual handicap of weight and bad riding, he triumphed, and his was a triumph which brought joy to the heart of every lover of a good race horse. With a careful, skillful rider like Odom or Shaw or Lyne, the Mamaroneck would have been no race at all for him ; but as it was, he won, and in winning intrenched himself more firmly in the affections of his growing army of admirers. Strangely enough, a little later in the day Rice rode a faultless race on C. H. Smiths Old Hutch. His work on the latter horse was so much superior to his handling of Hermis that tho experts were moved to wonder if itcould be. the same boy. He seems to have the making of a good jockey in himv and if he has, James McCormick may be depended upon to mould "him into shape.
