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FRENCH RACING IS HEALTHY English Obstacle Cracks Fail While Flat Ones Ail Succeed Heros XII. Failure in Grand Hurdle Lemonoras and Pomme de Terres Victories. PARIS, France, July 12. The Grande Semaine got rather a black eye at its beginning. In the big steeplechase at Autcuii there were ten starters anil through falls and going the wrong course two finished. Heros NIL, with George Parfrement up, was an overwhelming favorite. Three jumps from home the race bad narrowed itself down to the favorite, the Italian mare Absidea and LYser. In some unaccountable manner Parfrement. who was leading, steered for the wrong jump, and Hardy on Absidea, Head on LYser, and Thibault on Rayon followed him; but Head saw his error and, in pulling around to get into the right course too suddenly, caused LYser to slip and fall on the flat. Owing to the drought the going was slippery. Roi Relge, lengths and lengths behind the others, went on and won,, and Master Bob, also far behind, staggered home second. The stewards promptly suspended Parfrement for the balance of the year, fined Thibault five hundred francs and gave Hardy, on account of his lesser experience, a severe talking to. Parfrement tells me that he thinks the Italian mare would have won, LYser second, and he would have been third, as he was beaten when the mix-up took place. The Grand Hurdle race was the mid-week attraction. Five runners only. The going was like macadam pavement. Due Decazes Sonveins Toi was a hot favorite, but failed to stay. He made a mistake on the backstretch it is true; but Barre was hand riding and kicking him when he made it. TRESPASSERS ABSURD PERFORMANCE. Trespasser, the great English crack, made a laughable exhibition. He was pulled up and walked in. Jumping hurdles here and in England are two different games. Head on Forearm won a nice race and at the distance the best horse won. Sonveins Toi went just 3,500 meters. It was a disappointed crowd which went down to defeat with him after nine straight wins. The Grand Prix closed the week. In terrible heat an enormous crowd sweltered and tired themselves out. It is ancient history now to read of the race, so we will merely say that I.emonora trailed next to last all the way until the field reached the little woods after coining down the hill. Here Childs moved him up and, coming around his horses on the outside, won going away from Fleclmis and Harpocrato, with Tacite a head off the latter. Joe Childs supreme confidence was the most noticeable thing in the race. Three straight Grand Prix with Galloper Light, Comrade and Lemonora is a pretty severe object lesson and the Knglish papers are asking what is wrong with the French thoroughbred? AVar rations, no racing, and the sending of untried fillies to the stud as brood mares during the hostilities is the answer, added to the exchange question Avhich rendered the buying of good brood marcs in England an impossibility, for the French. FRENCH CROWDS AND SPECULATION. Lord Zetlands Pomme de Terre came over and made a clean job of getting all the big stakes with his win in the Prix de President at St. Cloud. Figures do not lie, they tell us. to here go the offiical ones for a comparison with a big holiday race meeting in the States. Total -receipts for rand Prix day at Longchamps, OSO.OOO francs; pnri-mutuel, 13,450,000 francs. The turnstiles, for he paddock stand, the pavilion and the field showed that there were 103,839 people present when Lemonora won the fifty-fourth Grand Prix de Paris. Two-year-old racing began the last days of June. We have been having an unprecedented spell of dry weather. The gallops and the courses are like pavements. Trainers cannot work their hoses, and we have seen no smasher out yet in the two-year-old division. Mr. Joseph Widener arrived for a short stay, and Jerry Welsh had a nice racing like filly by Xego-fol Rose Pompom, by Rock Sand, ready for a win. It was a small event of 10,000 francs at Le Trcm-blay. Rosarita, the Widener filly, broke slowly j and ran rather greenly, but when MacGee got her settled down to racing she came on, and won rather handily from Fortunn, one of the Macomber fleet, ridden by Frank ONeill. The dull racing days are now on. Paris is thinning out, and everybody is waiting for Deauville. Mr. Replogle arrived last week and is starting for a trip into Central Europe. Mr. Widener is sailing home on the Paris July 10. ONeill is heading the list of winning jockeys. MacGee, Bellhouse, Garner and Siiarpe follow in this order.
