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THE CAUSE OF JOHN M. P.S DROPPED KNEES. English and rrenoh Fences Are Decidedly "Weaker Than Those at Bfclinont FafK. Commenting upon the quality of the cross-country horses lately brought into the United States from England, Sports of the Times Bays in its current issue: "The English and French fences of today are weak, and the average English horse is accustomed to rise just so far and brush through the rest. Hence the dropped knees of John M. P., which are considered, a fatal defect here, and undoubtedly due to the soft fences over whlch he has been ridden at home. "Not only that, but the English and French fences are not nearly so stout as those at Belmont Park, nor do they average so high. I am told, on the best of authority, that even the famous National course has been so transformed one would scarcely know It. The fences have been cut down by wholesale, the brook dried up to about two-fhlrds of its normal capacity, and everything treated along the same line. That the landings at most of the water jumps are very bad, and that the famed plough Is really a manufactured plough, and not at all what its name would imply, to those who have had experience with the deep plough of Kngland in natural country. "If all this be really so, one can no longer wonder when horses from such a country strike the stiff, well built, five foot average fences of Belmont Park, there is a different story to tell. One which may in a measure explain why a dashing horse like John M. P., or Desert Chief, which have done so well, under weight, up to two miles and over in England, should fence so slovenly especially over water when they come here. "Most of ns, for long years, have felt In out fieafts tfat tiie. English fltesfejha5er, ,wfls par excellence, even 3 ftV BiHnoi We smiled -to our selves when anyone spoke of taking an American horse over to compete in some of the cross-country classics, but, if things are as we are told by absolutely impartial judges, men who know what they see, and when they see it, if things are so, well there is little doubt that Good and Plenty, Land of Clover, or several, before these, would have given an extraordinarily good account of themselves if they had been taken over, good and fit. "Of course this will precipitate the usual storm, in a teacup, from those who imagine the National is still the National, and who still imagine that the English chaser of parts brings his knees up sharply, and carries his hocks well under him, at his fences. We have now seen Gate Bell, Sea Horse II., Phil May, Desert Chief, and John M. P., and there is no possible doubt of the superiority of, possibly, ten American horses of the last decade to any of this imported stock, at two miles and a half or over. "We have not a raft of world beaters here, we have few comparatively really good horses in the steeplechase division, but, if the above mentioned imported stock are at all representative of the best there is in England, our best few as they may have been of the past decade" would surely have made them sit up and take notice. At least that is the plain opinion of a man who knows both countries, who lias walked over the National course in the old days, also that at Auteil, and who has ridden more cross-country races in his wild and verdant youth than he now cares to remember."
