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OLD RACING ROMANCES Fables About Eclipse of Old and The Flying Dutchman. English Versus American Speed, Past and Present, at Sprinting and Long Distances. BY SALVATOR. You have got to havn the speed, sir. Wrapped up somewhere in the steed, sir. If you ever take the lead, sir, I!e you jockey high or low." The only "character out of Dickens" that I ever knew in real life was a venerable Englishman, a village worthy of my childhood, with the very Dickensy cognomen of Legg. He was further Dickensy in that he lived in an alley the only alley in the village and there pursued the vocation of a I cobbler. Eut what was most Dickensy of i all about him was his appearance and his accent. He would have needed nothing of makeup to "play" in a low comedy part in a drama or melodrama of "low life in London," as they used to be produced and played half a century ago. His accent alone would have made the fortune of any player who could have even acquired it. Mr. Legg he was always respectfully addressed and spoken of by the residents of the village as Mr. Legg, despite his humble estate wore habiliments which, even in my tender youth, struck me as having come out of one of the illustrations which "Phiz" or Cruickshank drew for the illustrated Dickens that formed a part of the family library. Legg always carried a stout stick when he walked abroad, and when he walked he walked with just such a clump as a low-comedy character ought to. You could always tell if he was coming, even in the dark and in those remote days there were no street lights in the village by the tap of the stick and the clump of the footsteps of Mr. Legg. And when he spoke the illusion, was complete. Leggs comedy combinations were unique and indescribable. TALK OF RIFFLING CARELESSNESS. Mr. Legg was a magnificent talker. His talk did not resemble an oration, but an endless stream of conversation running over a bed constantly diversified by "riffles." It was varied by his inveterate addiction to a pipe, which he was never without. This pape was never removed from his lips except when he arrived at some particularly impressive point in his remarks. He would then place it between the fingers of one hand, while with the index finger of the other he gave the last atom of weight and import to what he happened to be saying, j Mr. Legg talked on all manner of sub- j jects. For such a character he read a great i deal, and he seemed to remember all that he read and a lot more. He had knocked about the world a bit and in the process had experienced some remarkable adventures. He was interested in everything and ready to talk about anything and to give to his auditors the benefit of his learning and his experiences alike. Mr. Legg it was from whom I first heard of the incredible speed of the English racehorse of the brave days of old. In rhe day of which I write the prowess of Ten Broeck was setting afire all the enthusiasts for the blood horse and he was sweeping from one record-breaking exploit to another, in the fashion followed by Man o War almost half a century later. No thoroughbred that ever previously appeared in America smashed the old gentleman with the hourglass and scythe up so shockingly. Being born with the "sweet poison" of infatuation for the race horse in my system and finding it easier to remember their names and records than it was the multiplication table or the capital of Beloochistan, naturally I was, as the modern phrase goes, "all het up" over Ten Broeck. I idolized him far more devoutly than the errant Hebrews did the golden calf and in my equine hirearchy he "outsoared even Pegasus himself." TRADITIONS OF THE ANCIENTS. Imagine, then, my astonishment and grief when one day, sitting, enthralled by the discourse of Mr. Legg, to hear that oracle dispose of all Ten Broecks pretensions to speed with a few vocal waves. For a moment I fairly gasped for breath. And when I began to come to and the voice of Mr. Legg once more took on meaning to me, I heard him saying: "Ten Broeck! Ten Broeck!" the repetition of the name in an accent of unspeakable scorn. "Ten Broeck ! Why, Ten Broeck only ran a mile in one thirty-nine and three-quarters. Didnt you know that Eclipse of Old ran a mile in a minute around the old Roundhead Course at Newmarket? He was the fastest horse that ever lived, except the Flying Dutchman. The Flying Dutchman was the first and only horse since Eclipse of Old that could run a mile in a minute. And I have seen The Flying Dutchman myself! It was no trouble at all for him to run a mile that fast. Dont talk to me about Ten Broecks ! Eclipse of Old or The Flying Dutchman could either of them run a mile a half-a-minutc faster!" I went forthwith to my father and demanded to know the truth. He was my court of last resort, ranking higher even than Mr. Legg when it came to the question of final appeal. His answer was balm to my almost broken heart. He assured me that Mr. Leggs tales about Eclipse and The Flying Dutchman were as much fairy stories as that of Cinderella and her shoes and pumpkin. That it was true Eclipse of Old never was beaten, but how fast he was nobody ever knew, for bo far as known he was never timed in any of his races. While in so far as The Flying Dutchman was concerned some of the races he won had been timed, but the time of them was slow indeed as compared with Ten Broecks and as between the two horses, if they could have been brought together, in his opinion Ten Broeck would have beaten the Dutchman decisively indeed. WHAT THE RECORDS SHOW. It seemed that the views of Mr. Legg About English race horses were English indeed, as. I have since discovered, those of a good many Englishmen are. Proportionately they are much more so than the views of Americans about American horses arc American. I have come in contact with many English turfmen, in the flesh and through the printed page, and as a rule their opinions regarding American horses more moderately resemble those of Mr. Legg about Ten Broeck, while the modern American horseman accepts them with an eager and touching docility, and, with a shamed face regarding his native productions, looks rather to Newmarket for both speed and gameness. If you will examine the volumes of the old "American Turf Register," the first of which appeared almost a century ago, you will find their pages often occupied by heated discussion regarding the speed of the American vs. the speed of the British thoroughbred. At that period we were but a few years away from the War of 1812, and many men were still living who had fought in the Revolution. The spirit of Americanism ran much higher and stronger then than now, and if you proclaimed yourself "100 per cent American" at that era you did not make yourself, as you do at present, a subject for insult and ridicule. But the contributors to the "Turf Register" were even then divided into two camps. One of them might well have been led by Mr. .Legg, for-they repeated and believed all the ancient fables of the speed of the antique British steed and discounted American horses most contemptuously; while the others scouted the Newmarket myths and proclaimed, by the indisputable test of the watch, that the native product was the fastest the world has ever seen. AMERICAN AND ENGLISH SPEED. "What Is truth?" said Pilate. And washed his hands of it And that is about all we can do in considernig the subject of speed, British or American, or British and American. The different countries measure and estimate it differently. And when the different products of the two have come together the verdicts have been so various that they have decided nothing and confused everything. We are in the dark, and we will probably always remain so for the good and sufficient reason that the Atlantic Ocean lies between Britain and America and it is practically an impossibility to transfer a first-class horse from one side of it to the other and be assured of conclusive results when the "acid test" is applied. Not only this. We are in the dark as to j just how much modern speed excels old-time speed. How much faster is the modern sprinter than the quarter-horses that, in the days of Janus and Bulle Rock, provided the thrills for the sport-loving descendants of the cavaliers who lived on the banks of the James? Nobody knows. Nobody ever can know. The highest speed of a race horse can be maintained only a short distance and, as a rule, can be used but once in a race, no matter at what distance. Once the "cork is out" it stays out. There are horses that j "come again," but there never was one : which, after "giving up all it had," could i give it up again. For the reason that the j one supreme burst of speed which a horse possesses cannot be duplicated in one and the same dash. He may give up another that is wonderful, but it will never equal the first. Flesh and blood have their limitations, and this is one of them. LOWERING OF OUR RECORDS. The capacity "of the high-caste race horse is to maintain a high rate of speed farther than any horse of lower quality can. But the rate of speed which he can maintain for a mile, let us say. is far indeed from that which he can show for a burst. Improved breeding, training methods and track building have greatly improved the capacity of the thoroughbred to run a mile faster and faster. Many men now living can well remember the time when 1:45 capacity was the mark of a high-class horse. Now the record shows 1:35 in a race and 1:3 lis against time. The question of improvement in pure speed, however, as distinguished j from the capacity to sustain it, is something difficult to determine. It is, indeed, indeterminable. The record for a quarter-mile, 21 seconds, which Bob Wade established thirty-one years ago, has stood ever since. Perhaps it would not have if our best modern horses were ever asked to beat it, but they have not been. The most brilliant display of speed seen on the American turf during 1021 was that given by Leonardo II. at Lexington last April, when he ran a mile and a sixteenth in 1:42, with a lot left; the best time for the distance being Celestas 1:42, of J.914, over the trotting track at Syracuse, N. Y. On this occasion the son of Sweep and Ethel Pace did the first mile in l:35f,. The first half he ran in 45 seconds flat, the record for the distance being 4GVs, while the first quarter he did in the dazzling time of 21. Schuttinger, who rode him that day, had also ridden Roamer when that famous gelding ran his mile against time in 1:34 at Sartoga, in 191S, and after dismounting said that Leonardo II. was the faster horse of the two. Howeer this may be, the speed he showed that day, so prematurely, as it afterward developed, was by far the most thrilling exhibition given during 1921. What the sustaining of extreme, or the most extreme, speed means is shown by a comparison of records at different distances. With a mark of 21V1 seconds for a quarter, we have nothing better to show that 46 for a half. This is a falling off, on a comparative basis, of practically six seconds for the second quarter. Comparing the half-mile record, 46, with that for a mile, 1 :34, the discrepancy is not so great, as the falling off for the second half is but two and three-fifth seconds. This doubtless is due to the fact that modern, high-class horses, with rare exceptions, do not race at a half-mile except as two-year-olds, the record for the distance having been made at that age. Leonardo II.s first half at Lexington in 45 flat shows what sort of record we might have if the cracks raced half-mile dashes. Leonardos half, compared with Roamers mile, shows a falling off for the second half of the mile of four and four-fifth seconds. When we double the mile the lack of ability to sustain pace has developed tremendously. No thoroughbred has ever shown the capacity, in America, to do two miles : at a 1 :40 rate even. Exterminator holding the record at 3:21. Using 1:34 as the measuring stick we have a falling off of no less than 12 seconds. In England two miles have been run by Pradella in 3 :19, but the mile record there is the 1:33 of the American-bred Caiman, so on a com-parative basis the two-mile rate is no more creditable, as an example of speed-sustaining power, than is our own. In Australasia the ability to go far and fast seems more highly developed than elsewhere. For while the no mile has been run there faster than 1:37 of Cetigne, Kennaquhair has done two miles in 3:22-y4. That is to say, with a mile record two and a fifth seconds slower than our own, their two-mile mark is but a scant second slower. It would have been an interesting test to see a Bob Wade hook up with a Roamer, Man o War or Leonardo II. for a quarter-mile dash in a test of pure speed. It is my idea that the "quarter-horse" would be beaten, but it is a question if he would be beaten much. This is especially true because weight means so little at short distances and the capacity of- a horse to carry it a distance, owing to superior strength, is at a discount. When we get down to eighths, we have nothing but training gossip to guide us, and that, for the most part, is as unreliable as old wives tales. However, the mile king, Salvator, which Roamer dethroned after a reign that had endured for twenty-eight years, flourished in the same era as Bob Wade, his mile in 1 :35 having been run in 1890, the same year as Bobs quarter in 214. In an old scrapbook J. find an interview with Matt Byrnes in which he stated that Salvator could breeze an eighth in 10 seconds at any time. Under pressure he could probably have shaded that. An eighth in 10 means, could the clip be sustained, a mile in 1:20, and about that rate is probably as near as the thoroughbred will ever approximate mile-a-minute speed.
