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SPANISH AND BELGIAN RACING HOPES Jockey Club of Belgium Kas Fund in Reserve for the Restoration of the Sport The problem of racing in Belgium is being dis ¬ cussed at the moment with a view of the re ¬ sumption of sport at the earliest possible date The scheme as drawn up modelled on what has taken place in the Spanish peninsular promises well In 1915 there were only five meetings with a budget of UOOOO pesetas or roughly speaking 12000 for something like twenty possible winners Two years later the sum apportioned for the racing bud ¬ get amounted to 000000 or twenty times the amount offered after two decades of racing and breeding in Belgium prior to the war while the number of horses running in Spain made fac better fields than the Belgian racing authorities had been able to attract It is acknowledged that noth ¬ ing can be done until peace is restored and the Bel i n Jockey Club can obtain the right of disposing of its reserves They have remained intact without being drawn upon as in France for the relief of the sick and wounded in the war for the benefit of breeders and as a guide to owners of studs French racing authorities recently asked for a loan of 100000 amply secured The government which ias drawn millions and millions of francs from the Totalisator made no reply and the conscript fathers of the Municipal Council of Paris can hardly have gained sympathy from their constituents by refusing lie advance requested Consequently the program drawn up and published will for the present have to remain in abeyance Interest will however turn to enterprise which has wrought such changes on the Spanish turf since the day when Kemmy Walker with his jockey Skinner took a horse out to Barcelona to win the big race there in the colors of Count Telfener and when Skinner on being presented to His Majesty shook him warmly by the hand and asked after Mrs King KingBELGIUMS BELGIUMS TURF RECONSTRUCTION RECONSTRUCTIONIt It is suggested that the reconstruction of racing in Belgium should be effected on the same lines as those which have proved successful in Spain It appears that the idea of racing in Spain was brought from Belgium or to be precise froni Ostcnd by the former lessee of the Casino there who had more than a voice in racing at that once frequented seaside resort There was the glamour of the old race meeting under the empire when it was organized under the patronage of the Empress Eugenie at Biarritz on the Spanish frontier and the attractions of the season were enhanced by the addition of a few things copied from Hoinburg and Monte Carlo Spanish sportsmen were quickly con ¬ verted to the ideas of a Belgian sportsman who had promoted racing and breeding in his own coun ¬ try The Snanish Jockey Club was the first to be impressed bv his theories which were adopted by the race societies and by the Madrid Tattorsall for the establishment of racing in Spain as the founda ¬ tion of a remunerative natio4nl industry As a se ¬ quence to these ideas successive lots of yearling fillies were bought in France cheaply owing to the slump in the thoroughbred market occasioned by war and imported into Spain Excessive prices were not paid and tjie purchases made in common were drawn by lots among the subscribers in the same manner as those which founded the racing stables in Germany after the liquidation of the Blenkiron Stud in England the remaining lots be ¬ ing put up by public auction A fair margin of profit was realized to form the nucleus of a fund for endowing races open to the imported horses and in which they alone were permitted to take part This system succeeded so well that one may consider the breeding industry us a factor of national success dates from 1017 when there were no less than 400 foreignbred horses qualified to race on the Spanish turf and the majority qualified for a place in home studs A similar scheme is iMing elaborated for Belgium with the addition of the purchase by the Belgian Jockey Club of an approved sire whose price is put down at from 1500 to 2000 guineas of English origin Paris Letter to London Sportsman
