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EL CUCHILLO WILL FIND ATJTEUTL DIFFICULT. Steeplechase jockey Harry Stoue. who is training Delcanta ami several other horses at Sheepshead Bay this winter, says El Cuchillo. which Joseph K. Idener will ship to France to race over the Auteuil course, will prove un exceptionally good steeplechaser if he successfully covers the course. Stone has ridden over the course and says it is a difficult one for a horse unacquainted with it. la describing its many difficulties. Stone says: "The course is just a little short of four miles and it is a particularly tricky one for a horse that has 11 ver be. 11 over it. Schooling is not permitted, and the only way in which a horse could be made familiar with the obstacles he is to meet, is by sending liiiu out in a race l efore the running of the stake. "It is a course that tests the courage and stamina of a hors and he must be a very level-beaded MM to .-over it sneers fully. I did not fall going over the i.ourse. but I was mighty close to comiug down more than oie e. "What is called the big river is a water jump that looks to be a mile wide wnen ou ride to it. There is another Iciice where any one standing 011 the landing side cannot see a Boise coming up until lie rises. The st » wall is a villainous pronosi ion for any but the cleverest fencers, and the up and down will puzzle any Luriv- that is not 011 the alert for the unexpected at all times. You gallop up a slo| e and then literally slide down a sti-ep bank on the other side. This, by the wsy. is followed by a water jump, and you have no time to recover from the toboggan experience liefore you have 10 set yourself for the water. "El Cuchillo may do well over then, but it is 1 asking a great deal of him. He is a h 2se witli a 1 great unu of speed, out I would rather 999 him i more level headed for the Auteuil course. Why. you have lo take three fences going to the po-t for the coiu-se over which he is to race. If you take off too far at one of the water jumps you do not land where there is any cement to help a horse scramble out of a bad landing. Ton sink a foot into soft stuff that will try tne stoutest sort of a horse. I would like to s e« him give a good account of himself, but he surely has a big contract iu front of him with 157 |k uim1s to shoulder."
