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; 1 , 1 1 i t 1 t , 1 YEARLING TRIALS. This is the season of the year when owners and j trainers try thoroughbred yearlings. Long before 0 this time next season the thoroughbred yearlings a will try the owners and trainers, and try them sorely. Many a precocious young race horse now full of promise will be found wanting long before b another summer passes, and will be cast aside as 3 worthless. It may be, as not infrequently happens, that some now despised ugly duckling will livo to be the salvation of his owner from a financial or r sporting point of view. And therein lies one of the, b charms of the sport. One never knows when a grand prize or a bfank is drawn. That is a secret fc which is locked securely in the ordeal of actual 1 racing, and which can be revealed only by actual I racing. Horses that have shown trials of the most fc brilliant order have been failures of the most miserable kind in racing. On the other hand, there b are brilliant public performers which give no evidence of their real worth in their private trials. There is a splendid optimism about the turf, its g patrons and its followers. On it the sun of good 3 fortune never is wholly eclipsed. In the darkest t hour the clouds never are so dense that one may not peer through them and catch a glimpse of the b golden promise beyond of that royal road strewn with wealth and all that wealth commands. Between the Atlantic and the Pacific thero is not an a owner of a yearling that does not look upon his g pride as another Domino or Commando, or another r Henry of Navarre or Gold Heels that does not believe that if his colt fails to make a two-year-old j like Domino or Commando, he will demonstrate his g worth later and.like Henry of Navarre or Gold Heels, prove to be a great three-year-old, or a great four-year-old. Perhaps the colt does not show a great turn 1 of speed. But he gallops as if he would like a distance, and distance racing, not sprinting, will be 3 his forte. If any man doubts the sanguine temperament of horse owners, let him scan the entry r lists of the big racing associations and he will be a doctor no longer. With these men a failure is an t obstacle overcome and a step overcome and a stop mado forward, not backward. Always they keep their object in view. Always they train their eyes 3 straight for the goal. Some other man may be the first to reach the goal they now have in view, but t beyond that there is another goal and a richer prize and so they go forward steadily, until the prize has been won or lifes race run. This picture may seem fanciful to man unacquainted with racing and the ways of racing men. It will be commonplace to turfmen who know themselves - and each other. Of Lord Rosebery it was said that he had a trinity of ambition to marry r the richest woman in England, to win the Derby p and become Premier of England. To all these ambitions Lord Rosebery attained. The point . worthy of note here is that his inclusion of the , Derby triumph in thia trinity is an unerring indication of how aearly a turfman may prize such a victory. . Of the Derby it may be said that it is a race in ten thousand or in one hundred thousand; but . what is true of the Derby is true, although in a lesser degree of course, of all the classics of the t turf. And so long as this spirit prevails, so long as . men place honor above gain, just so long must the turf continue to grow in the estimation of every man who has a drop of sporting blood in his veins. More and more with oach succeeding year the sport is gaining recruits of a most desirable character, men of great wealth and much leisure who fina their chief pleasure in seeing the thoroughbred gallop. There is also a noteworthy increase in the ranks of owners who race horses of their own brooding, and thus partake of the fullest measure of joy which the turf affords the pleasure of witnessing the triumph of a young horse whose growth and development have been carefully watched from the hour in which first it stood by tho side of its dam. Many are the disappointments to be encountered in racing, but many are also its pleasures, and the joy of one triumph is more than sufficient to atone for the disappointment of a thousand defeats. The success of yearlings bought at moderate prices and tho disappointing career of many high-priced young thoroughbreds to the contrary notwithstanding, owners continue to pay big prices, and they pay them because they want the best that money can buy. That is what makes it possible for our breeders to stock their farms with the choicest thoroughbred blood in the world. It would bo ead indeed were it otherwise, for then j 0 a b 3 r b a fc 1 I fc b g 3 t b a g r j g 1 3 r t 3 t - r p . , . . t our race horses surely would fall away in quality, Ifc is only by buying and breeding the best that tho thoroughbred can be improved. But the yearling is not always father to the horse, and for that reason some owners are fortunate enough to obtain stake horses at moderate prices while others pay high and only get platers. King Thomas brought nearly 0,000 as a yearling, and did not win a race until he was five years old, and then only a cheap purse. Domino was bought for ,000 as a yearling, and within twelve months had earned upward of 80,000 in stakes and purses alone, tho greatest amount ever won in this country by any horse. Yankee brought 0,000 as a yearling and proved to be a Sod investment at that price, for he won tho Futurity of his year. Then there was the great swayback Tenny, whose matchless duels with the kingly Salyator a decade ago will live as long as the memory of the men and women who witnessed them Tenny as a yearling was despised, and was sold for something like 75. A point bearing on this subject and illustrating the impenetrability of the future of the race horse, whether on the race track or in the stud, is furnish-y ed in the branding and casting out of Silk Gown, the dam of Garry Hermann, one of the best two-a year-olds of his season, and in the inglorious fail- uro of such mares as Miss Woodford, Frienzi and Senorita to reproduce themselves. Silk Gown was branded as worthless by the breeding experts and cait out forever because she had not produced a good colt up to that time. That the judgment of the experts was at fault was proved when Garry Herrmann came to light. Then tho error was ad-mitted freely, but too late, for Silk Gown, doomed to draw some hucksters wagon, had passed from tho breeding farm forever. Another high priced yearling that has proved a rank failure is Futurita by His Highness-The Butterflies, by a Futurity winner out of a Futurity winner. Of this grandly bred young filly the highest expectations were enter-t tamed. Yet she was fortunate to win her only brackets in lowly company at Aqueduct, and then at the tail end of the season. But the failures of other days have no effect on the owners and trainers now tryins out their yoar-j lings on the various race tracks north and south e.85.1 and west. These men see only the golden pds-j sibihties before them, and rich stakes are more numerous now than ever before. From every sec-tion of the country come reports of fast trials Down in Kentucky they have more than one year- ling that can gallop a quarter in 221 seconds, and ?nvrt!rsJn 23 seconds sem to be commonplace. ntnf ?haS. a choicband of youngsters, Charles v Hughes is directing the paces of a big Btring owned by H. M. Ziegler, who owns the Co- lumbia theater in Cincinnati and formerly was treasurer of that city. John E. Madden will winter his string at Louisville. W. C. Whitney, reluctant. ly abandoning for the time beinr his homo train. ing ground at Westbury, L. I., has shipped a choice band of youngsters to Aiken, S. C, thero to winter and receive their preliminary preparation for next season. August Belmonts youngsters intended for racing at the early meetings also probably will be prepared in the Bouth, as was the case last season. Thus far reports of faet trials have been confined largely to the yearlings workod in Kentucky, but there is at least one colt in this Bection that has earned something of a reputation. This is a hand some bay colt by Handsel, oned by J. A. Bennett! Just how fast this yearling can work, horsemen with a reputation for veracity decline to say, but they talk of halves in 47 seconds and are prepared to wager that he is the fastest colt sheltered on Long Island. Handsel himself also is owned by Mr. Bennett, who raced him. He is by Hanover-Tarantella. He was a good race horse, and Mr. Bennett believes that he will prove to be a success in the Btud. If all the yearlings showing good trials race up the promise they now give there will be some great sport next year. The Evening Sun.
