Here and There on the Turf, Daily Racing Form, 1922-10-06

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Here and There on the Turf Enticements of Winter Racing:. President Dymonds Wisdom. Turf Charity Modest but Liberal. Meadowbrook Steeplechase. Although there is still considerable racing to be completed before the opening of the winter tracks, many horsemen are already making their shipping arrangements for Tijuana, Havana or New Orleans. These preparations have gone forward until no doubt exists of both the quality and quantity of horses that will be kept in training through the cold months in the North. These owners will ship to lands of almost perpetual sunshine and there it is not cold weather winter racing. When the northern home folks are shoveling snow, those who pick one or the other of these delightful racing centers will frolic about in the equivalent of August sunshine. The Cuba-American Jockey Club has its agents at the various racing centers making shipping arrangements for horsemen. New Orleans is as ably represented, "while Tijuana was early on hand making its bid for patronage. All have met with a full measure of success zrd, with three such points from which to make a selection, about the only worry of the horseman is to decide just where he will tae his horses. Each year the call of this racing attracts more and better horses and the inducements are such that it becomes well worth while to keep the good ones in training. The announcement of John Dymond, Jr., president of the Business Mens Racing Association at New Orleans, that racing will be divorced from its busniess management is a wise move. The stewards are to have absolute control of the sport and it is only such a conduct of racing that can bring the. best results. Too often, particularly at the long winter meetings, there is a mingling of the business department of the sport with the sport itself, and that means something undesirable. The authority of the stewards must be absolute and it is hurtful if they are hindered or handicapped in the slightest degree by the business department of a track. It is the province of the business management to provide funds and practice reasonable economies, but its responsibility ends right there. There must be a business management and it must be filled carefully. It is just as essential as any other part of the sport, for no track can survive that is not conducted along sound business lines, but any time there is a mixing of the racing and the business there follows confusion and it is the sport that suffers. The stewards must be absolute in all that pertains to the racing of the horses and the control of those who furnish the entertainment. There is still plenty left to keep the business management busy. Horsemen have always been proverbially charitable and most of their charities are carried along in a quiet, unostentatious manner in which they ask no assistance from those outside of their own immediate circle. Just now those racing at Latonia are making up a fund for the benefit of the orphans of Kenton, Campbell and Jefferson counties. This is a worthy cause and it is assured that a handsome sum will be realized. William H. Shelley has charge of the subscription list at the Kentucky track. No sooner was it opened than many handsome donations were made. It is remembered that E. R, Bradley donated ,000 to the cause last year and he also donated the Louisville Cup money. Time and again, both East and West, there have been like donations to worthy charities and, invariably, the donations are made with so little sounding of trumpets that they are virtually unknown except by the donor and the recipient. Turfmen the world over are extravagantly human and liberal, as many can testify. At Hawthorne there is another collection being taken up that, while it is not for a charitable purpose, is for an excellent cause. It is to furnish a fund for the purchase of three more brood mares for the United States Remount station at Hawthorne. Long ago the United States Army came to a realization of the worth of the thoroughbred horse for military purposes and all through the country there have been established government breeding farms with the thoroughbred stallion as the stock horse. There have been valuable donations of thoroughbred stallions and, in fact, the government is right now pretty well equipped in this particular. But it is not always that the same care has been exercised in the selection of mares with which to mate these stallions. Much care must be taken "in the selection of suitable mares and the Illinois Jockye Club cannot do batter than make its donation one of mares rather than of a stallion. No doubt exists of the success of the campaign to purchase these mares. There will be a revival of a famous old steeplechase this fall with the running of the Meadowbrook Hunt Steeplechase. This old race was first run in 1883 and it has always been an event of tremendous importance to the hunting set. Its revival this year will be its first running since 1915, when it was won by A. J. Devereuxs Conqueror, ridden by his owner and carrying 175 pounds. The race is put on by the Meadowbrook Steeplechase Association and it will be run Saturday, November 11, at Jericho, Long Island. Subscriptions for this race close October 31 with the Meadowbrook Steeplechase Association, Room 1301, 66 West 40th Street, New York, and every effort will be made to have the revival of the famous race a worthy one. It is a race for registered hunters to carry 165 pounds over a three and a half mile post and rail course. Some of the sportsmen who have ridden to victory over this stiff course have been Stanley Mortimer, George Work, Thomas Hitchcock, J. L. Kernochan, H. S. Page, R. L. Stevens, R. P. Huntington, H. W. Smith, William Hayes, L. Haight, F. Harper, Malcolm Stevenson, C. C. Rumsey, Joseph Davis, F. "Skitty" Van Stade, Henry L. Bell, James Park and A. J. Devereux, who was ths last winner of the race. It may be the gentleman riders of the present day do not measure up to some of those who figured in the history of the Meadowbrook Cup, but there are many good ones still and such races make good riders.


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Library of Congress Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/unk82075800