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RACING SHOULD NOT BE DISCONTINUED Necessity of Keeping Breeding Industry Alive Suf ¬ ficient Reason for Sport to Go On No matter what might happen to other sports during the period of the war viewed strictly from an economic standpoint thoroughbred horse racing should not be discontinued writes Joseph A Mur ¬ phy phyThat That has been the decision in England France i Germany Italy and Australia and even in stricken 1 Belgium the Jockey Club has kept its reserves to ¬ gether and is already planning for big things after the war The stopping of racing in Canada by an order in council should not weigh because for climatic and other reasons breeding of thoroughbreds In Canada lias never reached any pretentious pro ¬ portions In fact when racing was conducted then ninety per cent of the horses contesting were bred in the states We will pass over the tremendous revenue do rived from the gate at race tracks In taxes for the government because certain revenues must be provided and if they did not come through racing they would be gotten in some other way We will claim nothing for the robust sums donated to Un ¬ ited Cross from tracks that in Kentucky alone this year reaching the sum of 300000 The Red Cross must bo looked after and if the money did not come from the race track it would flow from other sources sourcesLet Let us get right down to brass tacks and treat the subject of horse racing as a fundamental essen ¬ tial of the governments war program Whatever the future may hold it is admitted that the horse still is a potent factor in modern warfare It was the French a nl English cavalry that saved the first battle of the Marno it was lack of horses to bring up the heavy guns that stopped the German offen ¬ sive in March MarchARMY ARMY HORSE TO COME FROM THOROUGHBRED THOROUGHBREDThe The army and the Department of Agriculture have decided after careful study of the subject that the four breeds fitted for army use are the Morgans saddle types thoroughbreds and standardbreds The Morgans are rapidly disappearing The field of the saddle horse is narrowing daily With the disappear ¬ ance of the roadsters from the streets the standard breds are being more and more restricted to the fairs and race tracks The American army horse of the future must qonic from the thoroughbred and stand ¬ ardbred and these two must have racing to live To begin with it needs the test of racing to de ¬ termine the stoutest blood to breed from Then too in the present crisis and in the reconstruction period to follow the government will need the ac ¬ tive cooperation bfl every breeder Ten years ago there were 0000 thoroughbred foals a1 year registered Tills year the number jlias fallen to 2500 It can be seen that the seed is limited In the past few years A K Macomber August Belmont J II Rossetcr Jefferson Living ¬ ston Harry Payne Whitney and other wealthy breeders have spent millions importing the best bl6od lines of France and England To throttle tho breeding industry just when it is taking new life would be a public calamity calamityWhen When this war is over we will revive racing in Missouri Associated with me are most of the men who do tilings in St Louis We already have a ten ¬ tative program which includes financial aid to the county fairs and also the founding of an experi ¬ mental breeding bureau as an auxiliary to the gov ¬ ernment We shall assemble here stallions of the i four breeds approved by the government and not I only experiment in crossing them but send them to itlie different counties of the state for the use of ithe farmers We expect the active aid of the county fairs in this The Supreme court recently decided that the fairs could not be aided from the public funds and they need financial aid badly As proof of tills the Mexico and Centralia fairs in the midst of the horse country were recently abandoned We can supply tile needed aid through racing We can be of great aid to the governments breeding prpgram but in the meantime the breeding industry must be kept alive
