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i i , i i SUBSTITUTE FOR THE CITY PARK DERBY. Big Handicap Suggested to Take Its Place As Likely to be More Interesting. New Orleans. La.. March 23. — The running of the two Derbys here this season has emphasized the fact that the City Park event, coming one week after the decision of the Fair Grounds big race for the three-year-olds, is lnuind to suffer both as a drawing attraction and in ante-post interest, if not ;.lways in the matter of a keen contest. The two events come close together. With rare exceptions all the prominent starters are candidates that have been tried out here both in their two-year-old and three-year-old forms. No matter what they may have done in previous efforts, their capabilities over the Perny route with weight up is quite another matter, and so the Crescent City race always receives a great deal of public attention lor weeks before tin running of the event. After the decision of the Crescent City race, however, form is exposed, anil interest lags with reference to the running of the City Park 1 rby. It would seem, therefore, as if the City Park Jockey Club might do a wise thing to abolish its Derby and substitute a 0,000 handicap, similar to the Harlem and Hawthorne Handicaps of several years ago, which were th. big features of the summer racing at those two Chicago tracks, which always drew out the best horses in training, and always attracted overflow crowds to witness the running of them. Such a handicap would bring here a much better average class of horses four years old and upward from the east, as an owner would figure that besides whining opportunities in the purses and overnight races be would have a cnance to take down the big feature event of the City Park season. Following the Fair Grounds Derby, such an event would not only bring out all the best handicap horses, but a majority of the best three-year-olds ::s well. With an equitable adjustment of weights, announced say at least two weeks before the decision of the race, it would have great ante-post interest and would easily be in all respects the best Wee of the local winter season, a race of as much interest and importance as the Burns Handicap now is at Oakland. Of course, some glamor always attaches to a Derby, but under circumstances where the public knew exactly, or near to the point of exactness, what the candidates are capable of, any Derby is bound to lose much of its attractiveness. This, at all events, is a suggestion well worth the consideration of the City Park Jockey Club. Among the betting people notliiug has occurred in a long time that has received as much attention as the announcement by the New Louisville Jockey Club that the speculation at the Churchill Downs spring meeting will be carried on through the Pari-mutuel machines. This is the mode of speculation employed in France, where it is sanctioned by the government, a small percentage reverting to the government for the purpose of improving the breed of cavalry and utility horses. In the late seventies and early eighties the machines were used in this country to a limited extent, in conjunction with auction jmioIs and the books, but subsequently both the machines and the auction pools were abandoned in favor of the books. Many prominent turfmen there still are in the east who lxdieve that the Pari-mutuels constitute the fairest and best manner of speculation, but conditions are such that there would hardly be a possibility of re-introducing them in that section. The Louisville experiment will receive careful consideration throughout the meeting there from racetrack managers as well as from the bookmakers and the public. Of course the machines can never be popular with the bookmakers, as it deprives them of the opportunity to do business. Their general introduction would throw out of employment thus-ands of bookmakers and their el rks. and naturally it is to be expected that from this class the plan will meet with opposition. Just why it has been decided to put in the machines at Louisville has not been explained, unless it may be a matter turn-, ing on some technicality of the Kentucky racing law or the possibility to derive a greater revenue than has heretofore been derived from the books. The system is likely to be cumbersome and awkward at first, and very likely unsatisfactory to the public, who are unaccustomed to it. but with familiarity it may be found to work satisfactorily.
