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FAILURE OF WEIGHT-FOR-AGE RACE Various Reasons Advanced for Fizzle of the Newly Established Jockey Club Stakes. In casting about for the probable cause of the complete failure of the weigh t-for-age race at one mile and a half on the closing day of the meeting at Relmont Park some of the track officials were inclined to attribute the lack of starters to the scale of weights now in force. Many trainers, they said, seem to believe it favors the three-year-olds, and in support of this view they called attention to the fact that of the five horses whose owners were credited witli having made the final payment all were three-year-olds. The rest declined the combat before the day of the race. Rut this argument lost much of its force when only one of the three-year-olds answered the bugle call. Another explanation frequently advanced was that excessive two-year-old racing in the last few years lias killed off so many of the most promising colts that few are left to start in the all-aged division. As showing the force of this contention it is only necessary to state that in the first fourteen days of the Saratoga meeting this year there were twenty-six races for two-year-olds. This is not far from one race in every three, or at the rate of almost two a day, and it goes without saying that many colts of exceptional promise are mussed up, broken down or burned out in training and running for these purses and stakes at this age. Races at five-eighths and three-quarters of a mile, which are run at top speed from end to end. necessitate keying up the juveniles to concert pitch and keeping them keyed up in a way that spells ruin for many a good one. The consequences were seen at Saratoga, as they have been at every other meeting of the season in the same horses coming out over and over again to race in the stakes and handicaps, with a different adjustment of the weights to equalize the good, bad and indifferent performers. The almost complete supremacy of sprint races is another factor in the situation which, horsemen say. operates against the success of suelr a race as the Jockey Club Stakes. AVith so many of the richest prizes of the turf offered for races at short distances there is little incentive left for trainers to fit their horses to run a mile and a half, and, it might be added, little incentive for breeders to raise the kind that can do it when trained. In the system of racing in vogue in the United States the stout, enduring race horse of fifty years ago lias no place, and lie has almost wholly disappeared, giving way to the Domino type and the Domino blood or that of imported sprinters. It is said that the AVestchester Racing Association and the Jockey Club will make another attempt to establish the weight-for-age race which was such a farce at Relmont Park. Rut what reason is there to hope for a contest worthy of the donation of ,000 to the stakes when owners like Joseph E. AVidener, AVillis Sharpe Kilmer. J. K. L. Ross, AV. R. Coe, A. K. Macomber, II. K. Knapp, Edward 15. McLean, Robert L. Gerry and P. A. Clark will not go out of their way to save it from being a fizzle? New York Herald.
