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AMERICAN VS. ENGLISH JUMPERS. Jim OBrien, the British rider with the stable of Grant Hugh Browne, has reached the conclusion that American jumpers are better all round than the English. OBrien admits that for expressing such an opinion he will be adjudged guilty of heresy on the other side, but he says careful observation and common honesty impels him to proclaim It. "I never saw in England or anywhere else," says OBrien "a jumper that classed with Good and Plenty, the winner of two Whitney Memorials and one Champion. "Qood and Plenty can outfence, outrun and outstay the best Grand National winner that ever stood on iron; There lias been no Grand National in my time he could not have won. Saying that. Good and Plenty is better than the best of English chasers may not be Interpreted as meaning much, because the Rossliigton horse has also proven that he Is better than his American rivals. I will therefore go further and say that in my opinion the average American chaser is better than the average of British Jumpers. If the owners of American jumpers would only send a crack over to England now and then I believe they would find winning the Grand National easier than landing either a Whitney Memorial .or , a Champion. "Experience with good British fencers brought to tills country for racing purposes has convinced me that the Englishman is not as good as the American. They jump well enough, but they are too careful and they cannot live under the pace at which the Americans rush them through" the field. Before they can so much as hold their own on this side they must unlearn everything taught iu Great Britain. "I consider Desert Chief an excellent two-mile horse of the Balzac type, but he will not be ready for another race before fall. Even then I do not believe he will whip the cracks. John 51. P., one of the latest importations of Mr. Browne, is a big. find-looking" horse- which does not yield to Good and Plenty even in the matter of comeliness. We are breaking .Jilm in and he Is doing well, but I do not liellevc that he will ever take the measure of Mr. Hitchcocks great, juniper OBrien is not the only man who holds this opinion of the superiority of the American fencer over the British. Owens, who rode in England and France early this year for "Mr. Cotton," is of the same mind, and ".Mr. Cotton" has about concluded to try his luck in a Grand National. He is waiting for a good horse. ".Mr. Cottons" colors would be seen in the Grand National of 1007 if he had a jumper in his barn as good as the lamented St. Jude was a couple of seasons back. "Mr. Cotton" considered St. Judo better than Good and Plenty. No one else held this opinion, but perhaps that was because St. Jude did not have a fair chance to show in public what he had exhibited to Mr. Cotton in private. All cross-country sharps, however, concede that St. Jude was an uncommonly" clever jumper. Ills death, a year ago Inst winter, was generally regretted. There was a time when "Mr. Cotton" thought, with Gw.vn Tompkins, his manager, that lie owned another St. Jude In Delcanta. But. the appreciation of the Cotton stable of the Del Paso horse which won the first Mackay Cup is not as high as it was. He. is regarded now as a four-year-old of only moderate capacity. "Mr". Cotton" is inclined to think that Garrett, the Hitchcock horse which broke down at Sheeps-liead Bay the other day, was intended for the best four-year-old of the season. Mr. Hitchcock is sure the ill-fated Woolstliorpe gelding was the kingpin of his age. and his breaking down was a serious blow 16 the stable which races under the green jacket.
