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BELMONT PARK RACING ODDITIES The Small Fields at the Meeting Bring Out Some Queer Averages. NEW YORK. N. Y., September 22. Dame Fortune played strange pranks during the recent meeting at Belmont Park in the matter of winners coming from certain iost lositions. In seventy races run more than fifty per cent of the winners started from either number one or number two position at the post. This was extraordinary and due in many instances to the small fields. Statistics show that there were nineteen winners came from number one position, seventeen from :iuniler two, seven from number throe, nine from number four, eight from number five, five from six. two from seven, two from eight, noue from nine and one from ten. These figures show that twentv-seven per cent of the winners started from number one position and twenty-four per cent from number two. Looking over the problem of favorites winning and losing, twenty-two favorites out of seventy won races on which odds were laid, while thirty-six favorites won races, and there were but sixteen winners at ! to 1 or better. In all there were thirty-four favorites beaten out of seventj- races, or fully fifty per. cent. This sliows a pretty equal division, as but thirty-six per cent of favorites won at Belmont Park last fall. This increase was no doubt due to the small fields which predominated. Out of the seventy races recorded there were thirty-two winners where odds of even monej- up to 5 to 1 prevailed, or nearly fifty per "cent. These figures are of interest to system followers, as they show the most productive results come from the class of horses that range in price from even mono- to 5 to 1. Comparing the fr.ll meeting of this year with that of 1918, there were twice as many winners at odds-on this year as last, and nearly one-third more winning choices. These facts were no doubt due to many of the fields being made up of horses in which one or two would stand out distinctively from the remainder, while the winning outsiders last year were decidedly more numerous than they were this year, showing the contestants were more evenly balanced in 1918. Scarcity of starters had much to do with these results.
