view raw text
Here and There on the Turf Saratogas Special Race. It will be a real triumph for sportsmanship in this commercial age if the Saratoga three-year-old championship is actually run next Saturday under the conditions outlined in the announcement. "Whiskaway, Kai-Sang, Bunting and Pillory are certainly the leading candidates for three-year-old supremacy at the present time and a race which will bring them together is bound to be one of the real sporting events of the year. That such a race could be arranged with a maximum prize for the winner of ,500 and ?500 in plate seems almost incredible. Yet that is exactly what has happened. The owners of four of the leading aspirants to the championship have agreed to put up their own money for the race for 00 a corner, and the Saratoga Association will contribute ,000 to a charity as its contribution. This arrangement is not unlike the conditions of the old time match races of the American turf when champions were made and unmade in four-mile heats. That is, except for the charity feature. The owners of the thoroughbreds would not wait for any racing association to set up a huge prize for a race, but would put up their own money for the stakes. But they were just as anxious to win. If the weather does not interfere with the proposed special race it may do more to settle the question of three-year-old supremacy than any of the big stakes already run. Whiskaway occupies a superior position in the race for mastership, since he has. met most of the best three-year-olds and beaten them in actual competition, but his former stablemate, Bunting, and the Rancocas Stables Kai-Sang are both considered to have excellent chances to beat him. In any case the Saratoga Association is to be congratulated on the success of its attempts to arrange a real sporting special without any great amount of money being Involved. New York tracks, although paying their way, are deemed unable to compete, so far as huge money prizes are concerned, with the mutuel machine tracks and their enormous incomes.
