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FACE AND WEIGHT. The ideas of pace and weight which obtain today are not the ideas which obtained ten years ago. A decade ago we still were suffering from a plethora of English ideas, aud the American style of riding, now admittedly the best in the world, still was in its infancy, so to speak. At that time if a horse j had big weight up the invariable rule was to wait, and to wait far back in the ruck. There was no variation from this rule because of class or distance or for any other consideration. To do otherwise was to invito the wrath of nine-tenths of the men on the turf. Then came a shock that shook all the old ideas to pieces. At Brighton one pleasant summer afternoon Vot3r was in a sprint handicap with 140 pounds up. In the saddle was Tod Sloan, the least popular but none .the less the greatest of jockeys. To the amazement of a great majority of the horsemen Sloan sent Voter right to the front. In the twinkling of an eye he had a lead of half a dozen lengths. The wiseacres threw up their hands in horror. Sloan was killing the horses chances, lie would run him iuto the ground before the stretch was reached. But Sloan did nothing of the kind. He simply let Voter go right along about his business, not urging him and not restraining him. The result was a hollow victory for the great Keeno sprinter. Tho running of the race was a crushing blow to the old waiting tactics. American horsemen quick to learn at once realized that a horse might be choked to death, that ho might have all the speed taken out of him as easily and as effectually by waiting as by racing out in front. Always it is the pace and distance and not the woight that kills. That is a very pretty story that is going the rounds aneut the purchase of the one time Dwyer champion, Longstreet, by Mr. J. B. Haggin. As the talo runs, Mr. Haggin wanted Longstreet be. cause that horse beat Salvator when they mot in the Omnibus Stakes, run at Monmouth Park in 1889, and commissioned his agent to buy him at any price when he was put up at auction recently. Those who know of Mr. Haggins prodigality in turf dealings will not doubt the latter part of tho story, although, as it happened, the horse was little more than a gift, being knocked down to the agon on a bid of 00.. But those who know of the heartburning which Mr. Haggin suffered becauso of the Longstreet-Salvator dispute, will be inclined t doubt that he prized the hrse simply becauso he beat Salvator in tho Omn bus stakes, and beat him easily, with Proctor Knott busting Salvator in a drive for the place. The tuifowii of that day will remember that in a race in which Salvator won aud LongBtreet was beaten, there was a second string to the Haggin bow and it was insinuated that this second string was in tho raco for the purpose of taking care of dangerous contenders and thus contributing to the success of Salvator. Cool headed turfmen paid no attention to the insinuation, but Phil Dwyer offered to wager any part of 0,0C0 that Longstreet could defeat Salvator and there was a lot of idle gossip, which resulted in Mr. Haggin canceling all his Brooklyn engagements with the threat that he never would race over a Dwyer track again. That threat held good for more than a dozan years, and it was not until recently that his colors again were seen on a Dwyer course, It may be as related, that Mr. Haggin longed to possess Longstreet because the greatest of Longfeilows sons triumphed over the kingly Salvator, but it probably would bo closer to the truth to say that he wanted him because he was tho greatest son of the mighty Longfellow and bno of tho very greatest horses ever saddled in this country. Of heroic size and splendid confirmation, Longstreet in his prime was a work of art done in flesh and blood. Royally bred as ho is and with the splendid opportunities which he will have in the Elmendorf Stud, his fame as asire yet should leap to the heights to which he carried it as a race horse. New York Evening Sun.
