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Here and There on the Turf General Thatchers Improvement. Noisy Race Track Demonstrations. Naming of Yearlings. j New intersct has been added to the Endur- i ance Handicap, for two-year-olds, that will be the Saturday feature at Bowie. This is a j mile dash, with ,000 added, and seems sure j to bring a good field to the post. General Thatcher, by his two winning races at the .meeting, has demonstrated that he is possibly the best of those of his age racing over the Southern Maryalnd track and Preston Burch I has him in rare good form at this time. He j is one horse that suffers no handicap from the peculiarities of the track and there have been j no more impressive races there than his two ! victories. In his first he won with consummate ease, while in the Rainbow Handicap, Wednes-! day, he shouldered 126 pounds and gave a sen- j national exhibition. That same race saw Oui Oui, Montfort Jones Walden Handicap winner, well beaten and it was reversing the order of the Walden, for it was she that tookj the measure of the son of Sweep in that 0,-000 race of the Maryland Jockey Club. It has taken General Thatcher a long time to ripen into his real racing form. Had he been the colt in August he is proving himself to be in November, he would probably have a much higher rating among the two-year-olds of the year. He is a big colt and of a kind that could hardly be expected to be made ready for early racing. Preston Burch always rates him highly and made no mistake in his estimate. He will go into winter quarters a particularly promising three-year-old prospect. It is always unfortunate when there is any demonstration of rowdyism on a race course and, fortunately, they are few and far between. There was such a demonstration at Bowie after the running of the sixth race Wednesday, but as has been the case invariably, it only amounted . to noise. No sport is better policed than racing and no crowd is better behaved than a racing crowd. From time to time there always will be hoodlums who voice threats, but their ire soon wears off when they find that they will not have a following. There is do denying that the start in that one particular race was a bad one, but there have been worse on many occasions and on many tracks. The temper of a racing crowd is fickle and it will build up and smash many an idol in a racing season. George Miller has started horses exxcellently on many race courses and he has had many a good start at Bowie, but Wednseday was his un-lucky afternoon. At this season of the year the question of names for the 1923 crop of three-year-olds is interesting. Whenever preference is for having the name of the foal suggest his breeding, one thinks of Song and Dance, son of The Bard and Heel and Toe; although there have been pther names that have been equally appro priate. Coming down to much more recent days of the turf, the late Edward B. Cassatt endeavored to suggest their breeding in naming his foals. There was some surprise when Col. Cassatt named a colt Garbage, but he was a son of Aeronaut and Trash. Another from the same mare was christened Odds and Ends. He named a son of Aeronaut and Litigant Scrapper, and that was appropriate. Then he suggested his brood mare Bettie Bouncer when he named one of her sons Spring Board. Another that is still racing is known as Buckboard, while still another is called Ford, and the colonel admitted at the time "The Flivver" would have meant the same thing. It is related The Miser and Spendthrift, two I j iof the old-time sires of importance, were named jokingly. The breeder of both was asked by i his wife the privilege of naming the first foal. She jokingly said, "He will be known as Miser, in honor of my husband." When the next one came along the breeder announced that he would be known as " Spendthrift, in honor of my wife." Spendthrift was a grand race horse and both were good sires. Some of the other names that come to mind are Ormondes Right; rather cumbersome, but he was a son of Ormonde and Right. Paprika, a jumper that earned some fame in Canada, was by The Pepper Pretension. The Chef, another jumper, had for his dam The Cook. A. Henry Higginson called one of his May Not and his dam was May Lose. Dion Kerr, when he was racing jumpers, had Follow On and ihis dam was Edna May, whose Salvation Army lassie song, "Follow On," made such a tre-imendous hit when she was starring in "The Belle of New York." Early and Often was the name given to a daughter of Voter and Cinderella and it surely suggested the sire. The late John A. Morris, founder of Morris Park, j former home of the Westchester Racing Association, had the mare Cheesestraw and in her progeny will be found Parmesan and Cheese . Mite, as well as some others that at once ! suggest the dam. Many of the horses of Harry j j Payne Whitney and those of August Belmont have always been named to suggest their breeding. Adolph Spreckels is another present iday breeder who adheres to this system almost exclusively. As a system it averages as well as any. J. N. Burke, another California breeder of some years back, used musical terms j exclusively in naming his foals, sending a number into racing with sightly and pleasing names. One of them, Crescendo, was a smasher, and ran second to the famous Re- j quital in the Futurity Stakes of 1895, besides winning the Autumn Stakes shortly afterward.
