view raw text
BELMONTS FAMOUS RACE ; Lawrence Realization Feature of Next Saturdays Program. r : Small, But Select Field Present Outlook Great Horses Among Its Winners. NEW YORK, X. Y., August 27. The autumn meeting of the Westchester Racing Association will open at Belmont Park on Friday next, when the Manhattan and Tomboy Handicaps will be decided. They will serve as a spectacle for thousands of sport lovers, but interest will be greatest in the program for the following day. No race run in this country means more to the blood stock industry than the Lawrence localization, which will be the feature of Saturdays card. It is exclusively for colts and fillies, and is one of the tests over a long distance of ground which points the way to the production of a better type of thoroughbred in the United States. Its outcome Avill bo a subject of interest to every breeder and student of the blood horse on this continent. It is not likely that the field will be a large one. but it will embrace sufficient quality to make it a noteworthy feature of the autumn racing ear-nival, and as such it will attract the real lovers of the thoroughbred from all parts of the Bast. Unless something unforeseen happens between this writing and the day of the race Grey Lag, Touch Me Not, Sporting Blood and Sportiboy will go to the lMist. There is a chance that Tryster, John Paul Jones and Nancy Lee may be seen also, but the quartet named above are receiving a special preparation for the race. That Grey Lag is capable of winning is granted by n majority of the students of form. Beaten only once this year, and then through no lack of speed or stamina, lie has earned a place for himself among the great horses of the turf. The fact that he will meet Sporting Blood at equal weights disposes of that colt, game and honest as he has shown himself on numerous occasions. Touch Me Not and Sportiboy will be in receipt of concessions in weight under the conditions of the race, and if there should be trouble for the ltancocas champion it will come from these sturdy, big colts. Early in the spring of 1920 James Howe went on record as to the merits of Touch Me Not. He declared that he was a first-class colt, and might prove to be the be.st of the year. Then the wayward son of Celt developed a temper and refused to race generously. lie was the biggest disappointment of the year. It is only recently that lie iias reformed and it is significant that he is being prepared for the Lawrence Realization by the man who fancied him so much more than a year ago. His appearances at Saratoga gained friends for Touch Me Not, which is now a bigger and handsomer horse than Grey L-ig. He has all the looks of a high-class colt, and his trials as a two-year-old showed that he has a world of speed. If he runs kindly he will play a star part in next Saturdays prize. In order to do so he will have to be able to maintain his speed farther than any of the get of Celt with the exception of Embroidery. There is a chance that he will be helped by the Hanover Kayon dOr blood, which he inherits through his dam. Dainty Dame, which was a daughter of Handspring. SPORTIBOY BRED TO STAY. Sportiboy, the candidate of AV. It. Coe, is a stayer by breeding, and in the few races in which lie has been seen has been running fastest at the finish than at any other time. He is a young giant and English all over. Winning the Uealization would be the choicest present William Karrick could make his employer, who is absent in Europe. It woidd in a measure compensate him for the loss of the stake iu 3910 when his imported colt Over There finished first but was disqualified for a foul. Tryster was expected to be the thorn in the 1 path of Grey Lag in all of the big three-year-old prizes this year, but there is a well-defined idea that he is a sprinter only. His failure to stay, and the fact that Prudery lias not lived up to her early promise, shows the uncertainty of racing. With Broomspun dead, ami this pair less powerful than their two-year-old form would warrant, the Whitney stable is in a bad way for stake material in the three-year-old division this year. Prudery has won two races and earned a total of 3,000 to date this year, but Tryster has only a small purse at Saratoga to his credit instead of the 0,000 or more which appears opposite the name of Grey Lag, a colt which he was supposed to outclass as a two-year-old by many pounds. Glancing back over the records of the Uealization, which was framed by the man whoso name it now bears, students of breeding will get food for thought. Salvator, winner of the first test, in 18X9, was a superb race horse, as sound as a bell of brass. Of the Blair Athol line, his blood has not played the part it should have ia our horse products. Tournament, the second winner, was a coarse, big horse. He ran for that fine old sportsman. Senator George F. Hearst. His line is well-night extinct. Potomac, the next to be successful, ran his winning race practically on three feet. AVinner of the Futurity the previous year, he was a fine race horse, being out of the great mare Susquehanna, one of the best matrons of his breeder, the first August Belmont. TAMMANY WAS A WONDER. Edward Garrison, who had the mount, says that Tammany, the victor of the Uealization iu 1892, was the best horse he ever rode. Like Potomac, he has earned little fame as a progenitor. The same is true of Daily America. Dobbins and Bright Phoebus, the winners iu 18911, 91 and 95 respectively, though Dobbins was a great race horse and had a chance to make good iu Ireland. Uequital, which won the following year, is making a name for himself through the female line and Ids dams are being sought after, lie was ;i horse more noted for his speed than staying finalities. The Friar, which came next, has been, forgotten by all but those who recalled his fine races iu the colors of the Messrs. Morris. Hamburg, victor in 189S, is a noted sire of brood mares, and his progeny has made good on two continents. Etholbcrt. Prince of Melbourne and The Parader. first home iu 1899, 1900 and 1901, were good performers. The first- named got one great horse in Fitz Herbert, but the others failed dismally. Major Daingerfield, Africander and Ort Wells did better for the thoroughbred, and death robbed the mighty Sysonby of his chance to render the aid his breeding ami racing quality would warrant fanciers to look for from him. Accountant, winner in 1901!. has been bred to coldblooded mares and nothing has come from him to help the situation. Diuna Ken was a gelding, the original conditions failing to bar this type, but the name of Fair Play, the winner iu 190S. is being written largely over the pages of thoiiroughbred history. His sons and daughters are at the top of the wave of the present-day prosperity of the turf, his son, Man o War. making his name a household word wherever the thoroughbred is known. Fitz Herbert, winner iu 1909, has not bred up to expectations, but Sweep, which won in 1910, is much in the public eye at the present time and is doing much to carry on the Bonnie Scotland line. It is too early to speak much of the other winners of the Uealization from a breeding standpoint, as they have not been in the stud long enough to have had a chance. That Bock Views breeding warrants the prediction that he will be useful is conceded by competent authorities, while Star Hawk, Omar Khayj-am and Johren. each by a prominent English sire have the fundamentals of success. Vexatious, the successful candidate of 1919 is a mare, and her help might come to the turf through a mating with a slayer of the type of Johren. which is also the property of Mr. Whitney. What the wonder horse of the turf, Man o War, will do for his kind is a problem. If like begets like he will carry on the Fair Ilny-Koel; Sand line In u way that will wpell progress with a capital "P." His vitality was uot sapped by too much racing, and Jiis pictures show him a splendidly virile horse at the present time. Those who saw him win the Lawrence Kealization in 1920 will never forget the superb speed and unmatched stamina exemplified, in the record breaking feat of running a mile and five-eighths in 2:40f-,. The historic Nut scry Handicap will share with the Lawrence Kealization as an attraction on Saturdays card. It is one of the oldest of the American features, being first run for at Jerome Park in 1800. There are a few sportsmen alive today who saw that race. They can contrast the band-box uificcut reaches of Belmont Park and make comparison between the horses of that period and the present day, those of the early days of the Nursery being tested over the mile route instead of three-quarters. It was the day when stamina was an essential requisite, and speed was uot the slim total o every desirable quality iu breeding.
