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GELDINGS SHOULD BE BARRED, Cassatt Suggests That All Unsexed Colts Be Declared Ineligible to Latonia Championship Stakes. Capt. E. P.. Cassatt of the Chestorbrook Farm in Pennsylvania will be represented in the new Latonia Championship Stakes and in a letter to manager Hachmeister has suggested that geldings be barred from this race. "I am heartily in accord with your movement." says Capt. Cassatt. "to stop the starvation of the 3-year-old and I hope sincerely that your excellent example may be followed by all the other associations in the United States. "While approving the principle. I have to withhold my endorsement as to a detail which to many may seem trivial, but to me appears to be the most important part of the subject, and 1 feel confident that you will take this suggestion in good part when I assure you that it is made in complete friendship and with the same object that you have in view, namely, the betterment of racing and the improvement of the thoroughbred stock. "The sole excuse for the existence of racing is the improvement of the general breed of horses. Racing is not maintained to provide enjoyment for the people; nor yet to enable me or any other breeder to sell thoroughbred yearlings at the highest possible price: nor to enable racing associations to draw the largest possible crowd: nor even for the purpose of developing the most efficient racing machine possible. Selection of Best Reproducers Racing Aim. "Racing is for the purpose of selecting the best reproducers possible for the next and succeeding generations of both thoroughbred and common horses, and this object is defeated by permitting geldings to compete lor such races as your Championship Stakes. "When, and if your example is followed by most of the other associations in the country, we shall have an accurate and adequate ascertainment of the relative quality of our best horses of each year, which, owing to the unnecessary and irreparable damage done to our two-year-olds by excessive racing, we have not now. and it seems a shame to cast away the positive benefits of a series of races such as yours, by making it possible for them all to be won. year by year, by houses that are not the best horses of their year. They are not horses at all. and which would probably have Iieen unable to win had they not been castrated for the purpose of making it easier to train them and thus of making mere racing machines to pander to the cupidity of owners ai.d trainers. whose sole desire is to win races regardless of all consequences to the future of the horse industry. "Arthur Hancock, in writing me some time since. concerning this proposed race, asked for my opinion as to its advisability, and for this reason I am sending him for his information a copy of this letter. "In closing, I repeat my hoi e that you will believe that I have written in a spirit not of carping criticism but of friendly, helpful and constructive suggestion."
