view raw text
CAN ROAMER BEAT HIS OWN RECORD His Wonderful Performance at Saratoga Suggests He Could Do Even Better Ronmers recordbreaking performance at Sara ¬ toga when lie lowered Salvators long standing record for a mile aroused almost as much enthus ¬ iasm among racing men as the followers of trotting exhibited when Uhlan set the record at 158 in Lexington six years ago From the beginning of harness racing the stop watch has been the yard ¬ stick by which the capacity of the trotting horse was measured and every performance in which the best time on record was advanced from 230 in 1845 to 15S in 1912 was regarded as a landmark arid hailed as a great event in the history of the sport Followers of the runners on the other hand have paid less attention to the time test especially since English influences become so marked on the American turf and many of the greatest of mod ¬ ern thoroughbreds have lived and died without mak ¬ ing an attempt to lower the record at one mile It would puzzle anyone except a regular indeed to recall an attempt since Salvator set the record at 135 over the straight course at Monmoutli Park in 1890 1890Reamers Reamers record is clearly entitled to be classed as a worlds record the fastest legitimate per ¬ formance ever made anywhere by a running horse at the standard distance of one mile Some of the racing manuals and record books credit Caiman with a record of 133 If at Lingfield Park near London England but it is well known that the Lingfield course is down hill about half the dis ¬ tance and so is not a course on which a legitimate record could be made Some years ago when kite shaped trotting tracks were in favor and a fast record sometimes meant thousands of dollars added to the value of a horse one of these kites was built at Kirkwood Delaware with the finish a good deal lower than the start so that horses were going down hill all the way The performances made there nvere challenged and promptly thrown out by the National Trotting Association and the same reason applies for ignoring those made on the down hill course at Lingfield Park ParkThat That Roainer is capable of a still faster mile would seem to be indicated by the circumstances of his wonderful performance at Saratoga He ran without a prompter for one thing and he was not well rated perhaps because he had no pacemaker AVhen Salvator ran his mile in 135U he covered the first half in 47 and the last half in 48 with not more than a quarter of a seconds difference between the fastest quarter and the slowest one in the mile It was a perfect piece of riding against time Roamer ran the first half at Saratoga in 45 and the last half in 48 The first quarter was covered in 23 the second in 22 the third in 24 and the fourth in 24 There was thus a difference of nearly three seconds between the time1 of the first half and the last half while the sec ¬ ond quarter of the mile was run at the killing ratej of 129 and the last one at the rate of a mile in 138 138Now Now that the little gelding has launched a drive against the records it would be interesting to set what lie could do at greater distances than a mile When he won the Travers Stakes at Saratoga as threeyearold in 1914 he ran the mile and a quarter in 204 the fastest time then on record for the race drawing away from his opponents and finishing as if he could go on to a mile and a half or two miles in record time and he was carrying a lot of weight A little later the same season he ran ai mile and u quarter in 202 which then was prob ¬ ably the best performance ever made at the dis ¬ tance Whisk Broom was credited with a much faster one to be sure but many horsemen have asserted that when he was officially timed in 200 at Belmont Park the timer made a mistake and stopped his watch at the judges stand instead of the finishing post for this particular race many lengths beyond the stand New York Herald
