view raw text
ENGLISH SPEED VS. AMERICAN. In commenting on English time as against our own. Sports of tbe Times says: "As to speed, that is a moot question, one that will never be decided. Wc have improved our dirt tracks to the limit. England and France still race on grass. Yet tbe times published in the sporting press beat ours to flinders, notwithstanding that George Voorhees in 1900 declared that although he personally made the English times quite as fast as the reports show, he also thought that all English tracks except Lingfield, Brighton and Epsom, were from two to four seconds slower than our dirt tracks with two thrown up turns. This is American practical and expert evidence, and we can accept it. Still with records being made almost exclusively by selling platers, and very seldom by really high-class horses, and with such records " being made from ten to twenty iounds off from the scale, what is the value of mere time? Except as a base and a very poor one at that for aligning individual form on which to handicap. It is of no value on earth as determining the quality of a horso, unless endorsed by obvious class. Horses; like Sysonby and Colin run very few rec-ord-broakiiig races. There is no need for them to do so. They win on class."
