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A SANE VIEW SURELY The excessive hatred with which almost sill the journals devoted to the harness horse regard the thoroughbred horse and thoroughbred racing his al ¬ ways been a source of deep wonder and disgust So us The fact thnt practical harness horsemen themselves Have no such antipathy for the thorough ¬ bred makes the position taken by the press still more incomprehensible Thtrn when we think of the strong ties of blood which unite the two breeds of horses and of all the owners and trainers of harness horses who were glad to take up the thor ¬ oughbred with pleasure and profit to themselves in the days when the racing sport met with public approval our wonder Increases IncreasesWe We have reason to believe that this feeling was fostered by jealousy of the success which attended thoroughbred racing In the palmy days but surely this was a narrow and nosensical view of the situ ¬ ation Thoroughbred racing was never in direct competition with harness racing an entirely different class of people were attracted to each If proof Is needed for that statement we merely have to point to the well known fact that since thoroughbred rac ing was killed the attendance at harness racing not only did not increase but actually fell olT at the large majority of places where harness racing is conducted on its own merits and where the crowd is not attracted through the medium of a fair fairIf If our worthy friends make the claim that their attitude is due to the dishonest gambling that at ¬ tended thoroughbred racing in the old days we will not be able to take that very seriously for all we have to do to prove their inconsistency Is to point to the fact that almost the only places where harness rsicing is now conducted profitably without the aid of a fair arc those places where gambling by the iMiolsclling system which is just as likely to be dishonest as bookmakiug is carried on and we have failed to see oiir aforesaid friends rise tip in holy horror against that Dishonest gambling and an unbusinesslike disregard for the interests of the general public which supported the institution put thoroughbred racing under the ban In this country aud almost killed the industry of breeding thorough ¬ bred horses The same methods have kept harness racing from advancing as other outdoor sports and amusements have advanced and had it been con ¬ ducted on as large a scale in the big cities and attracted the same public attention that thorough ¬ bred racing did it would be in the same fix today There is no separate cddo of morals for harness rac ¬ ing and as soon as our friends the horse papers realize that the better It will be for our sport sportW W believe thoroughbred racing is going to come back into public favor just as soon as the promoters get sense enough to see that they must install a crookproof system of betting such as the parimu tuel but if it should prove impossible to secure the necessary legislation to bring that about then we can see no hope for conducting harness racing on any larper plan than as a side line to an agricultural fair If that time comes we can see no reason why the thoroughbred horse should not be used the same way We have always felt that harness racing was fortunate in that the followers of the thoroughbred sport did not exhibit the same vindictiveness that our newspaper friends of the harness horse do if they did it would be an easy matter to have pool selling on harness racing stopped as completely as is bookmakiug on running races Poolselling is just as illegal in most of the states where is is conducted u is bookmaking in others it would be an easy matter to make it so aud all the running horse people would have to do to have the law en ¬ forced would bo to start an agitation based on jus ¬ tice to all allAVe AVe are glad to lend our aid to prevent dishonest racing methods but our bigotry Is not developed to the iioint where we can discriminate in favor of a certain breed of horses that is being nscd as the basis of such dishonesty Crooked harness racing aud betting Is just as detrimental to society as crooked thoroughbred racing and betting Pacific Horse Review
