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Here and There on the Turf Ownership a Highway to Breeding. Pimlicos Attractive Homebred Stakes. Power of Impulse to Breed Ones Own Racers. Many Instances Cited. It is wonderful how the turf will grip a man when once he enjoys the thrill of seeing his own silks carried to victory. Many have the thrill without the victory, but it is there when one of his own thoroughbreds is battling, probably more often to defeat than to victory. The spirit of conquest is inherent in any red-blooded man. There is no sport where this spirit is more eloquently demonstrated than in the racing of thoroughbreds. The sportsman who begins modestly will gradually, as he can afford it, buy better horses, and it is but a short time before he wants j to breed his own. That really is the acme of racing thrill: to breed and rear the horse that is to go on to gallant deeds under silks. Each year there are additions to the ranks of breeders and they all come from men who have begun with a small string of horses that have so drawn them to the turf that breeding was bound to be inevitable. All of this has to do with real sport. It is not altogether the money that is to be won in races, it is the idea of producing a horse that will bs a possible champion. It matters not whether he is racing for a 50,000 stake or a tin cup, the idea is that he was bred at the home farm and by a home stock horse and from a home mare that had raced her way to fame and then transmitted that fame to her produce. That is the thrill magnified to its highest degree. It was to foster this spirit that the Maryland Jockey Club framed the Pimlico Homebred Stakes. This is a three-quarters stake race for two-year-olds that is to be decided over the old Baltimore course Monday, November 6, and it is a decided innovation in racing. There has been ,500 added for this years initial running, but it is proposed that it will be made a much more valuable offering, in other years should the experiment meet with the success that is expected. The way in which this race differs from others, and the reason for its name, is that starters must be owned by the breeder and to have been his absolute property since the time of foaling. Here is the spot for the sportsman to prove that Irs can produce a better colt or filly than his fellow breeders. It is a race that will bar the pick of the sales, but it will let in others that the breeder thought too highly of to send to the sales ring. And there have been ninety-three nominations made from thirty-one different sportsman breeders. The nominators are Archibald Barklie, William Woodwards Bflair Stud, August Belmont, G. W. J. Bissell, J. N. Camden, Richard F. Carman, Thomas Clyde, W. It. Coe, J. S. Cosdcn, Mrs. Frank Farrar, Samuel D. Riddles Glen Riddle Farm, Mrs. Payne Whitneys Greentree Stable, J. E. Griffith, E. R. Bradleys Idle Hour Stock Farm, Walter M. Jeffords, Willis Sharpe Kilmer, Major Thomas C. McDowell, Edward B. McLean, II. K. Knapps Oneck Stable, Harry j F. Sinclairs Rancocas Stable, J. K. L. Ross, Samuel Ross, Walter J. Salmon, Dr. Cary T. Graysons Salubria Stable, John Sanfords San-ford Stud Farms, Ralph Beaver Strassburger, Edward F. Whitney, Richard T. Wilson, George Wingfields Nevada Stock Farm and the Kent- , mere Farm. There are many others that did not make nominations and one of the notable absentees is Harry Payne Whitney with his Brookdale Farm. Sonic of these sportsmen have been breeding horses for a long time, but not a few of them arc comparatively recent recruits to breeding and they were recruited from having first started with a modest string. W. R. Coe, who is now a breeder . of importance, made his first entry to the turf in the days j of the Piping Rock Club, when he with many other sportsmen subscribed to a fund of 0,-000, contributed by fifty sportsmen for the purchase of fifty yearlings. These yearlings were later distributed by lot to the contribu- ; tors and some of them went on to racing j usefulness. It was from that sporting begin- j ning that the Coe silks grew to real racing importance and then came the Wyoming breeding farm that has sent many a good one to the races. J.- S. Cosden is new to breeding and his venture came strictly from his turf successes and a desire to see those of his own production j and rearing in action. Samuel D. Riddle was ; not known as a breeder until the marvelous successes of Man o War, the son of Fair Play and Mahubah, that he bought at the 1919 Saratoga sales from August Belmont for ,000. Man o War and the Man o War successes made a breeder of Mr. Riddle. The entry of Walter M. Jeffords to breeding is also recent and only came through the thrill of racing. Willis Sharpe Kilmer was destined to be a breeder when his imported colt Sun Briar made such a name for himself on the turf. The elder Kilmer had been well known to the trotting turf, but his son has made the name more famous with the thoroughbreds. His model breeding farm at Binghamton, N. Y., is known as Sun Briar Court, and it was there that Sallys Alley, winner of the Futurity, was foaled. The fact that she was foaled at Sun Briar Court makes her infinitely more valuable to Mr. Kilmer than had he purchased her at a yearling sale. Edward B. McLean is a compartively receot addition to the ranks of the breeders, but there is no more careful student of blood j lines and it all came from his racing ventures ; in which one horse, The Porter, played a most ? important part. Harry F. Sinclair came into i racing by paying big prices for the ready-made horses, but he has now established a most complete breeding farm in New Jersey. The foals from that farm will mean more to him than any of the high-priced ones he has from time to time purchased. Walter J. Salmon came into racing in a most modest fashion, but he was an enthusiast from the beginning. I Then when his Step Lightly was ! i the winner of the 1920 Futurity and Careful ! proved herself such a sterling race mare, it was natural that he should become a breeder. It would be possible to go on extending the list and discern that in almost every instance breeding has been the goal of the real sportsman. James Butler was for a long time a breeder and campaigner of trotters, but since he swung over to the thoroughbreds for racing purposes ! he has converted East View into a thoroughbred stock farm and his recent purchase of the stallion Vulcain is evidence that he proposes to go farther. Gifford A. Cochran is another of the New York sportsmen who from racing a small string has blossomed into a breeder of importance. His Mount Kisco farm is a show place and there have been many good ones sent to the races from his stock. He breeds for his own racing needs and, while he made no nomina-: tions to the Homebred, he is a sportsman who has frequently had the never-to-be-forgotten thrill of seeing one of his own breeding and rearing win stirring turf battles.
