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Here and There on the Turf Englands Increased Stake Values. Northern Racing Near the Finish. Marlboro to Fill a Gap. Thronging to Winter Tracks. Duettiste in Training Again. Of late years there has been a tendency here and abroad to either establish new races of high value or to greatly enrich races already well known and long established. In the latter category the Kentucky Derby, Preak-ness Stakes and Belmont Stakes are shining examples. Over in England no new races of great worth have been founded, but a striking increase in the values of the five great classics was brought into practical being. For a long time the Two Thousand Guineas, One Thousand Guineas, Derby, Oaks and St. Leger were simply sweepstakes in which owners ran their horses for whatever the accumulated fees and forfeits might amount to. Then the Derby, Oaks and St. Leger were made what we call guaranteed stakes in this country, while the Two Thousand and One Thousand remained as before. But a new departure was taken and couple of years back when a liberal endowment of added money was made to each of these world-famous races. For the first time the Two Thousand justified its name when its added money was made two thousand guineas. The One Thousand was also treated on the same line with one thousand guineas as its added money. The : money added to the Derby, Oaks and St. Leger was in sovereigns instead of guineas. The 1 added money to the Derby was 3,000 sovereigns, to the Oaks 2,000 sovereigns and o the St. Leger 4,000 sovereigns. This was the first year in which the five races were decided under their new terms, the benefits of which 1 were immediately reflected in their vastly greater returns to their winners. In the long and glorious record of the Epsom Derby its 3 highest net value to its winner prior to 1922 was the 7,750 that rewarded the wonderful I speed of Lord Lyon in 1866. This year, when 1 Captain Cuttle swept triumphantly home in 1 the "Blue Riband of the Turf," he won for his proud owner the munificent sum of 1,250. We had been under an impression in turf f circles here that we were showing our esteemed relative J. Bull something to admire in superior r values returned by our three great races for r three-year-olds at Churchill Downs, Belmont Park and Pimlico. But from Englands revelations it is obvious the shoe is on the other foot. However, none on this side will begrudge the good fortune that has come to English owners through a reform in their methods. As the , greatest and richest nation on earth we give . our winning owners an incomparable aggregate of money annually. Maybe, if the projected New Washington Park blooms into actuality, we will show the world a race of incomparable single value also. With only one more day of racing left at t old Pimlico, when the remarkably successful meeting of the Maryland Jockey Club will I come to a close, there is little racing left t : 1 1 3 I 1 1 f r r , . t I t before the end of the 1922 campaign in the North. The Dade Park meeting, near Henderson, will continue until November IS and that will bring the Kentucky racing season to an end for the year. In Maryland there will be no cessation until the end of the month. Following the close at Pimlico Saturday there will be a five days meeting at Marlboro and that will carry the horsemen right up to the opening of the Bowie meeting of the Southern Maryland Agricultural Association, which each year sees the last of thoroughbred action and each following year is the first to welcome him back to Maryland. This year the Marlboro meeting takes on an altogether new importance. In former years, since Bowie came into the regular Maryland circuit, it has been usual for that meeting to follow directly on the heels of Pimlico. But the Maryland State Racing Commission made a reduction in the Maryland racing year that brought about a gap of five days between the closing of the Maryland Jockey Club meeting and the opening of Bowie. That was the opportunity for Marlboro to hold its meeting with no opposition. Realizing the value of the open dates for Marlboro the Southern Maryland Agricultural Fair Association, controlled by the same sportsmen who arc in control of Bowie, have seen to it that the program wrould afford useful and profitable opportunities for the horses until the opening day at Bowie. As a result Marlboro will attract better horses and more of them than ever before raced over that course. Joseph McLennan has prepared the j Marlboro as well as the Bowie book, and has seen to it that horses of every degree will have ample opportunity to earn their way. There will be a handicap on each of the five days of racing that will take care of the best horses that take part in the meeting, while the various selling races are graded down from a top price of ,000 all the way to 00. This gives them all a chance and the distances are as varied as the selling prices. This gives Marlboro a place in the Maryland racing scheme that it never enjoyed before. It is thus that a tremendously successful racing year is drawing to a close. It is a year that will long be remembered for the restora-1 tion of racing to Chicago, while it has marked the opening of a new track in Dade Park, near Henderson, Ky. Both of these points promise to be important in racing next year. With the plans that are going forward for 1923 the prospects for a continued and greater turf prosperity are indeed bright. In the meantime the stables at the various winter tracks are beginning to fill up with the thoroughbreds that will be campaigned through December, January, February and March. The regular winter racing season will overlap the meeting at Bowie, for Thanks- giving is the opening date for the three different courses and already each one of them has a considerable number of horses on hand making ready for the opening. It is welcome news that Joseph E. Wideners Duettiste is in training again. This magnifi-j cent son of Ethelbert and Dulcibella, bred in France by August Belmont, was looked upon as one of the most formidable eligibles for the Liverpool Grand National Steeplechase last spring, but he unfortunately went wrong a short time before the race and could not be brought to the post. Prior to that he was winner of the Brook Steeplechase at Gatwick as a part of his preparation and trainer Escott was particularly sweet on his chances in the greatest of all steeplechases, for which he was being pointed. Now Escott has him galloping soundly again and the Liverpool Grand National is again his desired goal. When Duettiste was sent abroad in the hope of winning the Liverpool Grand National it was agreed that he was the best American pros-1 pect that had ever been sent over for the race. He had won six of eight steeplechases in this country. On the other occasions he raced through the field he was third to Bet and The Brook in the 0,000 Manley Memorial at Pimlico and in the Green Spring Valley Steeplechase at the same track in 1919 he was knocked down at the third fence. Altogether he was winner of 7,280 from racing in American steeplechases and that was a big accomplishment. Thomas Welch raced Duettiste on the flat for Mr. Widener when he was brought from France in 1917. He was then a five-year-old. He only met a moderate measure of success on the flat and it was the following year he was turned over to J. Howard Lewis and schooled through the field. That jear he was only started twice. He was winner of his first race through the Belmont Park field, over the two-mile course. His second start jwas in the Manly Memorial, in which he finished third. In 1919 he had an unfortunate beginning when he was knocked down at the third fence in the Green Spring Valley Steeplechase, but he followed that by winning both the Chevy Chase sid the Manly Memorial Steeplechases. Both are over a two and a half mile course and Duettiste carried 143 pounds in the Chevy Chase and ten pounds more in the Manly. In 19.20, the last season he raced on this side of the Atlantic, Duettiste won his only three races through the field. This was the two miles of the Green Spring Valley, in which he shouldered 164 pounds. The second was an overnight race at Laurel, over tho two-mile distance, and he took up 167 pounds, while his last and best race was a second victory in the Manly Memorial Steeplechase, in which he took up 173 pounds and won easily over its two and a half mile distance. Duettiste demonstrated in all of his racea that he is a natural jumper of excellent speed, absolutely fearless at the jumps and, for a horse of his inches, more agile than any seen in this country in many a day. He has shown, as far as was possible in American racing, that he would race as far as any horse and no obstacle was too stiff for him. With such attributes it is small wonder that he was well thought of for the Liverpool Grand National. With the long, careful preparation trainer Escott will now give him for the race of 1923, Mr. Widener still has a chance to see his silks first in the most coveted of all cross-country races.
