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Here and There on the Turf Pleasing Opening of Winter Racing. Prospective Mobile Meeting. In Winter Quarters at Ben- ning. Those Macomber Mares. Many Entries for Belmont Park. AH three winter racing points have been auspiciously started on their long winter season of racing. While many of the horses that will presently furnish entertainment have not reached the scene, it was shown that there are ample on hand for the beginning of the sport. At Havana and New Orleans there were six races, with forty horses starting at Havana and forty-eight at New Orleans. At Tijuana ware seven races and fifty-seven horses went to the post. This is an excellent showing for the first day of such long meetings, and when the many other horses that are booked for one or other of the tracks arrive, the fields will be considerably augmented. It is essential that there should be horses enough and too often the winter meetings have been handicapped for lack of racing material, which means that the same horses start day after day. This condition cannot exist at any one of the three tracks this season and it all makes for better contests. Plans are in contemplation for another race meeting at Mobile at the conclusion of the New Orleans racing season. There is only a half-mile -track there, but it will attract many of the horses that race at New Orleans after the Fair Grounds meeting concludes and will enable horsemen with small stables to keep going until other openings come for them in the spring. It is proposed to conduct this little meeting along lines that will make racing more popular than ever in Mobile and it is probable that before long Mobile will play a more important part in racing and will have a mile track for its meetings. Although plans were made for the stabling of horses at the Bowie track during the winter months, most of the promised strings have changed over and moved to the old Bennnig track. The reason for this is that Benning is so much more conveniently located. It is admitted that Bowie could be made an ideal track at which to winter horses and give them their early spring preparation, but it is well-nigh impossible to induce a stable crew to remain there for the winter. The track is isolated and several of the trainers have had to change their plans to be sure of holding their employes. James Rowe had announced he would keep a detachment of the Harry Payne Whitney horses at Bowie and preparations were made for them by the building of a stable, but now these horses will be housed at Benning. And there are several others. Preston Burch has the good two-year-old General Thatcher, as well as the others he has in his care for George Wingfklds Nevada Stock Farm, at Benning and Matt Brady has taken the Joseph E. Brady horses there. Both Burch and Brady have wintered at Bennnig before and they are thoroughly at home at the old Washington Jockey Club track. W. P. Burch, the veteran conditioner, also has a big string there. He has long been a Benning patron. The Edward B. McLean horses that are not sent to the Virginia farm of the Washington sportsman will be at Benning as usual in the care of John Schorr and, altogether, the old Benning colony will be unbroken and there will, be the addition of the Whitney and some other strings. Great interest is being taken in the consignment of French mares from A. K. Macombers Haras du Quesnay. They number forty and are all safely stabled in the big Macomber barn at Belmont Park, where they will remain until December 24, when they are to be offered at auction at Durlands. Horsemen who have inspected them since their arrival have been greatly impressed and the sale promises to attract wide attention among the breeders. Already some of the prospective buyers have arrived and there have been offers made privately. Just what the importation of these mares means to the American thoroughbred industry is hard to estimate. They are all richly bred and most of them are young. Several are heavy in foal. It is to be hoped that there will be a wide distribution of these mares. The first of the stake races of the future to be closed have demonstrated the continued prosperity of the turf and the thoroughbred breeding interests. The Westchester Racing Associations famous old fixtures, many of them inherited from Jerome Park and Morris Park, show increases that are highly pleasing to all concerned. The liberal policy of the association in making the Belmont Stakes a S50,000 offering is in keeping with its historic importance. In that there were 440 nominations received, an idea is furnished of just what it means to the breeders. Such races as the Belmont, the Lawrence Realization, the Withers Stakes and the Coaching Club Oaks mean more for breeding than almost any races that could be devised. They are prizes for the breeder in that at the. time of nomination the foal is either not born or is of such tender age that absolutely nothing is known of its qualifications as a race horse. But the breeder always has a chance to produce a Man o War, an Exterminator, a Sir Barton, a Lucky Hour, Kai-Sang, Bunting, Pillory, Whiskaway, Rockminister, Sallys Alley and the like. It is his duty, should he have the good fortune to produce a champion, to see ;to it that the foal has engagements commensurate with its promise. Sometimes the best colt or filly of the year, by reason of the negligence of its breeder, is barred from its full measure of opportunity because it has not been properly engaged. But breeders are becoming more careful each year and this is shown by the hearty response to these rich early-closing races.
