view raw text
CHANGE IN HANDICAP CONDITIONS. Entrance Fee to Overnight Races Will Be Play or Pay at Belmont Park. New York. April 2fi. — New conditions will govern the overnight handicaps at the spring meeting of the Westchester Racing Association, and the system will in all probability be extended to the meetings which follow at other tracks. The conditions make the entry fee of any horse for an overnight handicap play or pay. and no provision is made for a declaration, as has been the custom in the past. It has been customary to charge an entrance fee of 0, or only $."i if declared on the publication of the weights. But in future the entrance fee of Slo will lie charged whether tin- bane starts or not, and withdrawals will be made the same as to an overnight selling race hall an hour before post time. All of the horses entiled for a handicap will lw» seal out in the entries and be shown on the program as possible starters. As it frequently happens that there are twenty or more entered for a handicap, not more than half of which can be depended upon as siariers. the new system is not apt to be popular with the public. Tinier the old rule of posting -ri. an he- a- sum as they are made no objection* cenld have been found, but under the system that prevails at present of withholding all scratches until within a few minutes of post time there will be no end of confusion. All overnight races, of whatever character, will tie on the same basis so far as declarations are concerned. Horsemen will no longer be able to find cat the handicappers opinion of one of their horses lor the trivial fee of $."•. a ruse that has been re-sarted to often in the past. Stay-at-home bettors will bare to cut the handicaps entirely out of their calculations or hedge their commissions with no end of instructions, and the new scheme should be effective in the fight against poolrooms.
