view raw text
AQUEDUCT NEXT SCENE Metropolitan Jockey Club Will Play Host for Twelve Days. Quality of Sport Sustained as the Season on New York Tracks Draws to a Close. BY C. J. FITZ GERALD. NEW YORK, N. Y., September 16. As the 1922 racing: season draws to a close the quality of the sport is sustained remarkably, and patrons of the turf are benefiting: by the enforced idleness of some of the best horses earlier in the year. The sickness which at one time last spring assumed the proportions of an epidemic was a hardship then, but it has operated as a blessing for the sport, giving a zest to the autumnal period of racing which it would not, perhaps, have possessed if there had been no setbacks to prevent some of the best horses becoming jaded before the season was three-quarters over. The impulse to race a horse when he is lit is natural. Many trainers, however, overdo it, the immediate engagement is dominant, and instead of planning a rational campaign, with a sequence of events spread over the entire season, and so arranged as to give their charges a rest at stated periods. The unusual precipitation has been another factor. Heavy tracks have kept some horses in the stable, notably Bunting, when they would otherwise have been racing. An accident served to shelve the good colt Lucky Hour and keep him from his engagements until this month. As a result, we have had high-class sport at Saratoga and Belmont Park, with every prospect of its continuance at Aqueduct, which meeting opens Monday, for a period of twelve days, and which will be followed by Jamaica and Empire City, with the curtain finally falling on the sport in this state for 1922 in about six weeks. LONG DISTANCE RACING PLEASES. The interest aroused by races such aa the Saratoga Cup, the Realization Stakes, and the Jockey Club .Gold Cup forces the conclusion that the public wants a return to conditions which call for a display of other Qualities than speed. The thrills accompanying such contests are missing from our sprinting races. The public discusses a race like the Realization for a twelve-month, while a dash at three-quarters of a mile is forgotten in a week, no matter how brilliant its finish may have been. There is something soul-stirring in the spectacle, when the game-cocks of the turf challenge each other in a last final rally of the battle which has already called for the reserves of speed and courage. The winner of such a race is praised, and so is the contender, which oft-times is glorious in defeat. The efforts of the Jockey Club to secure a return of long-distance racing has been applauded by those with the best interests of the sport at heart. Those owners and trainers who have seconded the movement by sending their horses to the post are entitled to the gratitude of that portion of the public with an understanding of the thoroughbred and a realization of how essential these distance races are for his welfare. It is along these lines that the Aqueduct management is entitled to praise for making its Aqueduct Handicap, to be run on Saturday nexr, a test of one mile and five-sixteenths. It would have been better if the race were a mile and a half, and better still if it were two miles, but the shape of the course as at present constituted is againsc it, though the size of the field for such a race would admit of its being run in safety over the track of the Queens County Jockey Club. It is a substantial prize of 10,000 and has every good horse in the country engaged. With Exterminator, Grey Lag, Mad Hatter, Prudery, Firebrand, Devastation, Playfellow, Captain Alcock, Paul Jones, Bon Homme, John Paul Jones, Flying Cloud, Paragon and Golden Guinea representing the class of the older division and such clinkers among the three-year-olds as Kai-Sang, Bunting, Lucky Houn, Pillory, Whiskaway and Southern Cross among the eligibles the Aqueduct is certain to be a great race. ENGLISH HORSES MAY START. This handicap may serve to introduce tho English horses Paragon and Golden Guinea, from the Sanford and Miller barns respectively. The former was a good horse in England not a Grey Lag or an Exterminator in quality as Mr. Sanford remarked when asked about the horse as the animals arrived here last. June. That he possesses class is indicated by the winning of such races as the City and Suburban and Kempton Park Jubilee. Golden Guineas form was not as good as that of Paragon, as he trained off as p. three-year-old, but he is beautifully ttred and should race well. The features for the opening week at Aqueduct include the Bayview Handicap, for three-year-olds and over, with ,000 added, at one mile and a sixteenth, to be run on the opening day. The Bellerose Selling Stakes, ,000 added, for two-year-olds at five-eighths, is down for Tuesday, while the Woodmere Selling Stakes, ,000 added, for three-year-olds and over at three-quarters, will be run on Wednesday. The pick of the two-year-olds ought to go to the post for the Oakdale Handicap, ,000 added, at three-quarters, on Thursday. As it was a late closing event the names of Enchantment, Dunlin and others that were ineligible for the Futurity are found among the entries. This is a guarantee of an interesting race. Fridays card is made up entirely of overnight races, which have been framed to bring out good fields. The Bushwick Steeplechase Handicap, ,000 added, for three-year-olds and over at about two miles, will share interest with the Aqueduct Handicap on Saturday. Jt has the best of the jumping talent engaged and should be worth witnessing, as many new performers will be seen in action. 6
