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JUSTIFICATION FOR WAR TIME RACING British Turfmen Call Attention to What Limited Meetings at Newmarket Have Revealed British turfmen are calling attention to the justi ¬ fication for war time racing which they find In the fact that the limited meetings nt Newmarket in the last four years have brought Into prominence three colts good enough to perform the unusual feat of winning all three of the races which are regarded as the chief classics of the British turf namely the Two Thousarid Guineas the New Derby and the Sep ¬ tember Stakes the last two races being war time substitutes for the Epsom Derby and the Doncaster St Leger In more tlian a century of racing before the war only ten horses hadi succeeded in winning the triple crown as the English say and among them were such giants of the turf and stud as West Australian Gladiateur Ormonde Isinglass Galtee More Flying Fox Diamond Jubilee and Rock Sand It was in 1903 that Rock Sand won and there was an interval of eleven years before Ppmmern matched his performance In 1917 Gay Crusader repeated his feat and tills year Gains ¬ borough has accomplished it again There is no parallel in English turf history for three horses wJnninjr the three classic races within four years yearsHad Had there been no racing during the war period none cf these great horses could have been distin ¬ guished from a thousand others equally well bred and equally perfect in conformation Only on the race course could their inner worth and Intrinsic merit be established Without the opportunity for success ¬ ful public competition the enormous market value of a horse like Gay Crusader could never accrue Breeders would have been in the dark as to which families and what particular sires and dams were producing speed and stamina In short the sus ¬ pension of racing if continued long enough would virtually extinguish these qualities which have been evolved by the scientific process of selection and development as praefictd by breeders in England for two hundred years or more moreEnglish English racing men are not agreed as to which was the greatest threeyearold among the war time winners of the triple croWn Pommern won his three classics quite easily Gay Crusader was un ¬ beaten after his first start last year while Gains ¬ borough has not lost a race since April when he was not yet ready to show his true form Bayardo the sire of both Gay Crusader and Gainsborough is the only horse excepting Isouomy that ever got two winners of the triple crown He was thought to be the best three year old of 1909 win ¬ ning the St Leger and meeting with a mishap in the Derby which probably was the cause of his losing the race The champion of 1918 is a small horse as mbdern thoroughbreds go standing barely 153 hands or about the same as Roamer New York Herald
