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Here and There on the Turf Mr. Belmonts Two -Year-Olds. Thunderclaps Capital Racing. Bet Awarded in Court. It is fitting that the chairman of the Jockey Club should play a foremost part in actual racing and Major August Belmont is likely to play that part in 1923. There was general regret when the scarlet jacket, maroon sleeves and black cap were for a time in retirement, but the silks have come back and come back in a manner fitting the prominence of Major Belmont as a sportsman and a breeder. At no time was there a cessation of the activities of Major Belmont as a breeder and, as a matter of fact, his temporary absence from actual racing worked a real good to the thoroughbred industry. It meant the wider distribution of the stoutly bred horses for which the Nursery Stud became famous long years ago. It made possible the purchase of Man o War by Samuel Riddle. It is natural that Major Belmont would have preferred to have this great thoroughbred racing under his silks when he was making such brilliant turf history, but Mr. Riddle himself had no keener joy in the career I of the son of Fair Play and Mahubah than did his breeder. And there were other good ones that became available when the Belmont silks were not being shown in races. All of this distribution means much for both racing and breeding. And when Harry Payne Whitney also made so many important sales another big thing was done for the American turf. It is truly unfortunate that with the return of the B:lruont colors the most prominent of the two-year-olds he has shown went amiss and had to be thrown out of training before he had a real chance to show his worth. This colt is Messenger, which was third in the Flash Stakes at Saratoga, and after being beaten in the Saratoga Special gave evidence of his quality in the Grab Bag Handicap, when he was a cantering winner. It was after that race that it was decided he would be laid aside for his Futurity engagement, but unfortunately he shortly after fell amiss and he could not even be trained for that greatest of all two-year-old prizes. That was not the only misfortune that befel the Belmont Stable. Louis Feustel, who had fitted the string, was a sick man practically all of the racing season and finally he had to give up his labor altogether. The horses are now in the care of George Odom and Major Belmont could not have made a better selection for a successor to Feustel. Odom had no chance with Messenger, for the colt was in retirement when he took the string over, but he has done his part with the others and the Belmont silks have come to their proper importance in racing. Felside, How Fair, Amusement and Osprey are recent Belmont winners that Odom has saddled. They are young thoroughbreds that are due : for a fuller measure of fame before the end of the year. They are also of that sturdy Nursery ! strain that will go on and the famous old t - , i I . . . silks are in a fair way to play a most impor-3 tant part in the three-year-old fixtures of 1923. Osprey, the latest Belmont winner, is a magnificent individual and is bred along the same 1 lines as both Man o! War and Messenger, be-! ing by Fair Play, dam a Rock Sand marc. . His dam, Olympia, is a daughter of Rock Sand and Orienta, she by Henry of Navarre, , and from Ortegal, a daughter of Bend Or. No thoroughbred stock farm has done more for the improvement of the American strain than 1 the Nursery, and there is no better authority r of blood lines than August Belmont. If Thunderclap continues on his winning way he will be crowding all the" other turf idols for popularity. This remarkable son of Vulcain and the Star Shoot mare Bandana b3-gan . his 1922 racing at Jamaica May 13 and. in constant training right through the racing , season, he is better now than ever before. He . has been raced fourteen times, many of them hard races, and only three times has he finished unplaced. On one of those occasions he , was away so badly as to have practically no i racing chance. He has won five races and in another he was second to his stablemate, Little Chief, under stiff restraint when he could readily have been the winner. He has always taken up heavy weights and an evidence of his present condition is the Tact in his victory Friday he gave his best performance when under 133 pounds he raced a mile and a sixteenth in 1:43. The present excellent condition of Thunderclap is a testimonial to the skill of Samuel G. Hildreth as a conditioner. He is a past master in keeping a horse big and strong, and apparently "high" and at the same time at the top of his racing form. His horses do not wasto under the rigors of his preparations and when Hildreth sends one to the post it is usual that he is ready to run fast all the way. And as a general proposition the Hildreth horses havegood manners. This i3 particularly ap--plicable to the big black. As Judge Pettingill remarked after Thunderclap had won Friday, "His manners remind one of Sysonby." He came out of the race perfectly unconcerned He had been forced to a supreme effort to win, but when it was all over there was no distress and there was absolutely none of the nervous excitement that takes so much out of a horse. There was an interesting decision handed down in the Circuit Court at Louisville Friday when judgment was awarded for 72.50, the amount due on a mutuel ticket that had been destroyed by its purchaser. In this case, . through an error, the wrong number was posted as the winner of the particular race and the owner of a ticket on the actual winner tore up his ticket before the error was : corrected. The ticket was picked up by an- : other, pieced together and cashed. It was a . race that was run at Churchill Downs last j fall and when the rightful ,owner of the ticket failed to collect he brought the action against ; the Kentucky Jockey Club that has just been decided by Judge Thomas R. Gordon. In awarding the judgment the court ruled that the Kentucky Jockey Club was liable by reason of its negligence in posting the number of the wrong horse after the race had been run.
