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HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED BY SALVATOR SALVATORPresident President E J Tranter of the PasigTip ton Company has been favoring some of his friends with a very interesting volume a sample as it were of his complete works It consists of the catalogs of the yearling and other sales of thoroughbred horses held by his company during the last year hand ¬ somely bound in flexible morocco full gilt with the recipients name tooled upon the cover A portly tome it makes too as it includes something like a couple of dozen different brochures some of which list and describe over a hundred different head of horses horsesMr Mr Tranter takes pride in the typographi ¬ cal excellence I might say elegance of his catalogs and as brought together in this mastervolume they present a quite impos ¬ ing appearance No printers legend is af ¬ fixed but I believe it is a firm in Cleveland Ohio which long has specialized in the work of this kind that gets them out Their fin ¬ ished product is certainly a tasteful and dignified affair and gives a fitting setting to the cerulean pedigrees that make up their contents contentsIn In turning over these pages my mind in ¬ continently has wandered back to the first catalogs of yearling sales and similar ven dues which I used to receive I will not state how many years ago for whats the odds Suffice it to say in that those de ¬ parted days the late Colonel Sanders D Bruce the compiler and original publisher of the American Stud Book was the chief figure in the thoroughbred sales business He held vendues both in the metropolitan district and in Kentucky There were also some local firms in Lexington which did business in rather a small way Lastly a number of the most prominent Blue Grass breeders were then in the habit of manag ¬ ing their own yearling sales Sometimes they simply hired an auctioneer and held their vendues at their farms Sometimes two or three would join forces and sell together in a more formal and pretentious way I The publicity of that period was prim ¬ itive indeed compared with the brands of these piping times A few modest armounce j ments in a turf weekly or two perhaps a few bits of reading matter from which the advertising angle was eliminated as much as possible And that was about all As for the catalogs they were of the most un ¬ obtrusive description Usually they were little pamphlets that slipped into ones coat pocket easily and the critical apparatus that accompanied the pedigrees of the ani ¬ mals enumerated was of the simplest sort when not dispensed with altogether altogetherIJEFORE IJEFORE DAYS OF BREEDING CODES CODESThat That was before it had been discovered that no pedigree could be properly evalu ¬ ated or colts chances of winning estimated unless the precise proportions of the blood of Eclipse Matchem and Herod mingled in his veins had been determined and the caba ¬ listic letters E M and H spotted all over it like flyspecks on a lunch counters bill of fare Bruce Lowe had not yet unfolded to the world the Figure System and no magic numerals denoted the precise tap ¬ root to which each offering traced There was no encyclopedic information about all the brothers the sisters the cousins and the aunts of every colt and filly with be ¬ wildering details of the ramifications of the family in every quarter of the globe globeAll All this was missing Getting out a sale catalog was then a small matter indeed Anybody with a set of the Stud Book and the facilities of an ordinary jobprinting shop could turn one out almost over night And now what a difference in the morning Just observe the handsome distinguished and elaborate issues of Mr Tranters firm into 1 whose makeup have entered the offices of all sorts of experts first in the work of compilation and then into that of the typog ¬ raphy The contrast is startling startlingAnd And by the same token so are the re ¬ sults of the modern yearling sale as com ¬ pared with those of the period I am harking back to Then a colt or filly that went above 2 1000 was a star Now one has to go above 10000 if not above 20000 to reach that high estate If I should backward turn backward and give an itemized list t of some yearling sales of those days and state how some of those yearlings turned out it would seem either amazing or amusing or both to the modern turfman turfmanMoneywinning Moneywinning possibilities are what de ¬ termine yearling values So great are those of the present day that they make those of the past seem pickayunish Nowadays some of our jockey clubs give away more money not only for a single days racing but for a single race than the biggest and best then did for an entire meeting So increases the glory of this world worldBut But are the horses proportionately worthy of it Ah theres the rub Are the pam ¬ pered darlings that parade before ap ¬ plausive galleries at Saratoga each Au ¬ gust that much better than those compara ¬ tively homespun and rustic beauties their predecessors As I look back it seems to me the modern thoroughbred yearling is much more of a hothouse product than the one of an earlier time He has the hallmark of something forced something as it were in ¬ tensively cultured something bigger and bulkier something much more manicured within an inch of his life than the less dolledup article of the past But how much better he is of that one cannot but be somewhat dubious dubiousSince Since racing was subjected to the make it snappy process a new breed has come into being and whereas the older type had a look of toughness and hardiness the mod ¬ ern one is distinguished by an aspect just the opposite It has truth to tell a kept an indulged n rouged and powdered spoiled luxurious air almost leading one to wonder if it ever saw a stable or a paddock but came not rather from a steamheated elec ¬ triclit valeted and tailored establishment somewhere along an equine Rue de la Paix PaixHow How many of these curled and spangled creatures impress the observer as fit for nothing so much as a show case or a pic ¬ ture gallery rather than the rigors of the race course What a grownunderglass appearance they have How many of them have wonderful tops and questionable bot ¬ toms tomsFortunately Fortunately they will not have to go far A few furlongs on the average The age of Marathon is past This is the jazz age and effort concentrates upon getting a little way as speedily as possible Nothing else mat ¬ ters If you want a long haul why ship by truck Nobody is looking for a fourmile hero A halfmile one will serve And il you can put one over on that basis per ¬ haps only once the rest is easy There will be enough to winter on and buy others next season in the strong box boxNORFOLK NORFOLK AND LONGFELLOW LONGFELLOWSo So the turf teetotum whirls We look with interest and respect provided we have the chance at the portraits of Norfolk and Longfellow in Mr Vosburghs new book but we do not look with similar feelings upon yearlings at the sales If we saw one that looked like the making or a Norfolk or a Longfellow there he would not interest us What does interest us is something that looks as it might be a Futurity winner or a Hopeful HopefulTo To be sure Norfolks name will live in history so will Longfellovs Observe their prominence in Mr Vosburghs pages in which many a futurity and Hopeful winner is not named But the presentday turfman lives in the present and looks to it for his bread and butter For the page of history he does not care a hang Neither does he get gray hairs from worry whether we are progressing or the reverse He is im ¬ mersed in the days doings and in doing them as the day dictates Should we ex ¬ pect more of him Not unless we are the orizers in the habit of leaving human na ¬ ture out of our equations Longfellow Them days is gone forever If the son of Lexington and Novice the son sonof of Leamington and Nantura came back to earth today their occupation would be gone Each has his historic halo which time can not tarnish What we do sigh for is more Morviches or Sallys Alleys So we will go to Saratoga next August sit beside Mr Tranters arcadian salesring turn the pages of his sumptuous catalogs and if we have the price pay 10000 perhaps 20000 for something that looks like it might turn out one There is no other moral to this tale
