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rj J I j i i 1 TWO-YEAR-OLD RULE STAYS JOCKEY CLUB LAYS REQUEST FOR CHANGE ON TABLE FOR A YEAR. Present Laws Do Not Penalize Winners of Privato Sweepstakes, Even Whan They Are Valuable Owners Going to New Orleans. By Ed Cole. New York, December 15. At the regular monthly meeting of the Jockey Club, held at the office of the club yesterday at 4 oclock, there were present Mr. F. K. Stnigis, Mr. H. K. Knapp. Mr. Perry Belmont. Capt. E. B. Cassatt, Mr. Dwyer, Mr. Robert L. Gerry. Mr. F. R. Hitchcock, Mr. Andrew Miller and Mr. Schuyler L. Parsons. Captain E. B. Cassatt withdrew his proposed amendments to rules of racing Nos. 127 to 132, as proposed at the meeting on August 10. The secretary presented a letter from Joseph A. Murphy, racing manager of the Business Mens Racing Association at New Orleans, protesting against the rule as to racing two-year-olds before April 1. On motion, duly seconded, the letter of .1 Judge Murphy was laid on the table, to be taken i up at the October, 1917, meeting. The committee appointed at the annual meeting of the Jockey Club, on rules, composed of F. 1. Hitchcock, II. K. Knapp and Captain II. 15. Cassatt, submitted the revised draft of the rules of racing, and the secretary was instructed to send a printed copy of this revised draft to all the members of the Jockey Club as well as to cause the regular , publication of the same iu tlte "Racing Calendar." A vote of thanks to the committee on rules was , unanimously adopted. One of the rules which may in the future be amended , by the Jockey Club when the proposition is put before it. will have much to do with a clause : relative to maidens. It will possibly nullify the existing clause in rule 81, which says: "Extra weight shall not bo incurred in respect of private sweepstakes, nor of matches, even though , money be added to the latter." It was this rule that enabled the colt Hwfa to start in a maiden race at Belmont Park, on September 11, notwithstanding the fact that he had won the Piping Bock Invitation Handicap on June 1, for which his owner. II. P. Whitney, collected 1916.sh,950. Hwfas eligibility was further enhanced by a clause in rule 1 of the Jockey Club regulations which declares: "A maiden is a horse which has never won a race other than a match or private sweepstake in any country." Tho Piping Rock Invitation Handicap was a private sweepstake, and that being the case. Hwfa was still a maiden when entered in the opening race at Belmont Park on September 11. The committee on rules hardly considered it equitable for a horse to run in a maiden race which had previously won a race wortli nearly ,000, consequently a change is proposed to prevent a recurrence under the existing laws. In connection with this subject. Sporting Life, the English publication, recently had the following comment to make about sailing races, which happens to bear a curious relation to the proposed rule change here: "Certain gentlemen who continue to race on tho highest lines still observe the principle, and whenever one of their horses wins a selling event he is permitted to go at the subsequent auction. Occasionally an owner is forced to regret what may have been a hasty decision on his part there were two or three instances last season in support of this view to observe the spirit which ought to pervade all selling plate transactions, but it is to feared that the majority of those who are regularly concerned with this particular form of racing are not actuated by any real desire to rid themselves of the horses which prove capable of winning such races. "It is decidedly curious that the reform alluded to as having been inaugurated in the United States should have had so prominent an advocate in this country as Mr. Harry P. Whitney, whose horses used to be trained at Newmarket by Andrew Joyner. There may have been an instance or two in which Joyner bought in one of his selling plate winners, but, if so, they must have been few and far between, practically every winner sent out from Balaton Lodge for this purpose being allowed to change hands" at the succeeding auction. "For this reason, I always admired the conduct of the Whitney stable, which set so excellent an example in the direction referred to. As already remarked, there are a few English owners who patronize selling races solely for the purpose for which they were instituted, but they represent a mere handful as compared with those who employ such events as media for purely betting purposes, "Everyone with experience of English racing, whether under Jockey Club or National Hunt rules, could name without much difficulty several horses which have spent the greater part of their live3 in competing for selling races, to be bought in, of i course, after each successful venture. "So long as this sort of thing is openly permitted owners cannot be blamed for acting as they do, " while so long as race course executives are allowed " to share any surplus derived from the selling price ; of a winning horse or buying-in price, as it often is it is not likely that there will be any alteration ; in the rules. "Yet how much more grist would come to the mills of the executives if it wore made compulsory i that a horse should be bona fide sold after winning a selling event or at most a couple of such . races!" I Charles Borel will leave in a day or two for New . Orleans, to be ready for the opening day, when it is probable some of the Johnson and Billiugs horses will require his services. According to reports and foreclosure of mortgage t proceedings, the old Sheepshead Bay track may t revert to the Coney Island Jockey Club or its - interests. The new automobile enterprise is said 1 not to have been the success anticipated. W. C. Edwards, secretary of the Jamaica track, . is wintering in Cuba and will not return until k early spring. Mr. Thwett, passenger agent of the Southern 1 Railway, says he has booked a large number of racing folk for New Orleans, the majority of whom 3 will leave during the next ten days. The Ward Line is also carrying a good crowd for Havana on - every steamer going that way. H. D. Brown is expected in the city shortly - from Havana. s There will be forty new mutuel machines placed r in Devonshire Park for the next meeting, which opens June 30. Horsemen here are delighted at the news that racing at night has received a setback in Montreal. "It is doubtful if the management could have " gotten sufficcnt horses to race," said one of the horse owners, "as it was generally understood that T the meeting proposed would not be encouraged."
