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SMALL CROWDS AT BELMONT PARK Inferior Racing Cards Duo to English Way of Racing, Believed to Be Responsible. By J. R. Jeffery. New York, September 13. It cannot be said that the Belmont Park fall meeting lias been a howling success to date. Except on such special occasions as Labor day and Futurity day, the attendance has been light and below expectations. Undoubtedly the reason for this is to be found in the inferior racing cards that have been served up lay after day since the opening of the meeting. Ara-rious explanations have been offered to account for the failure of the races to fill satisfactorily. At first the blame was laid to the non-arrival of horses from Saratoga as a result of the shortage of cars with which to transport them. But that is an excuse that no longer holds good. All of the horses intended for racing here have arrived from the Spa. No- good purpose is served by closing ones eyes to the unwelcome fact that horsemen generally never have taken kindly to the racing at Belmont Park. Their only objection is based upon the fact that the !iorses are required to race the reverse way of the track. INNOVATION FOLLOWS ENGLISH IDEA. This innovation, introduced by August. Belmont md his associates when Belmont Park was first opened to the public, follows the English idea. Probably because nowhere else are the horses required to race the reverse way, trainers appear loth to give their charges the special preparation necessary for racing over the Belmont Park track, and the consequence is that the burden of filling the races falls to a large extent upon the big stables that regularly make Belmont Park their training headquarters. It is, indeed, a pity that tills should be so, for Belmont Park, with its magnificent distances, its splendid equipment and its high-class management and clientele, richly deserves to be what was intended it should be when it was built the turf headquarters of America. It lias been suggested by some horsemen that it might be found advantageous to divide the daily program at Belmont Park, so that a part of the races be run In the same direction as at other American tracks. The proponents of this suggestion believe its adoption would lead to a wider patronage of the meeting by horsemen and that many stables would participate in the racing that uow dodge the meeting entirely. It is hardly likely, however, that any such radical departure from the policy of the AAestchester Racing Association will find favor with those directing its destinies. They have ideas of their own and well-grounded motives for the innovations they have introduced and the policy they have laid down probably will be persistently adhered to with the idea tliat eventually the bulk of the horsemen will abandon their hostility to the innovations and recognize the advan-Niges claimed for them. Meanwhile, it is probable that Belmont Park meetings - will continue to be notable for light fields.
