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" Calculating Foreign Winnings , - 2Y SAL.YATOR. Them t an an book jok in jn other her ich As As ie£T Gj of the Ihe the the were 2rc * :zci the nf, lit- !jt_ side km them ?m | ed f Ufa l ng l As As by by that ia - rs j J the ne e * m the he r n l er a the he I l ls • th l to or 1 fine ae » of ys ■ fa the ie » be dc a to to o or If H •n O h 1- g »k b s: : si of f a a ly w g a ie si g u; us »r gi ie s g ai w to Q * s is is it it tli . u - ra n V, a Oi Out e —if — it it •. l,« sc j fact * B tn the t .r for to t Y.a j c0 ha otl I j mc f ser — — A f na had j lll£ the ! tlu the hls *2J t the the t wa was , of ; ?,re ered , wa war ■£* " sible vide , F* great rac raced ™ times but el01 , Ce the Cra ma "SnU !°n tories, tenon, Le" etc. etc. ZJ — a :m are -0- foL ent entire e 1 but but ins ing ma of of after aft late • ° of °f but but a a i .or llor u JJ" toil force tne there, en 1919. 1911 cents. - , " frai franc, "»e one ano One of the most potent fascinations of of life on the turf, or affiliation with it. is the he infinite variety of its perspectives. Universal sal and cosmopolitan, it has a many-sidedness ss equaled by nothing else in the world. The common meeting ground of pikers and princes — I name the former first because ise of their larger numbers !— you cannot go far in it or live long with it before you are ire lured in many different ways. That is why hy e find men — and women — of every type and taste among racings devotees. In the sport itself, or growing out of it, they find ma- a- terial witn which to satisfy desires of every y sort— making it. indeed, a unique institu- U" tion ln wllich, if you have "taken a degree." you may be pardoned the boast that yours rs has been a "liberal education." : never know where I may fetch up when en J r nave begun to devote myself to some phase M or problem of racing or breeding— what song or sermon it may have for me, what picture rc re l may Paint, what negative develop. I may. Y. imaginatively, or through the medium of of the printed page, have to ransack the globe. or- asain, everything may be adjusted in in in tne bak ard. And so it goes. Where I am going 1 havent, all too often, the slightest idea. I am simply on my way. And it is the way. rather than the objective, which .h beckons— the joy of the open road, not the 16 inn at the end of it. CULTIVATING VERSATILITY. If ou wish to "keep up with the game" 1 you must be prepared, on short notice, to to turn your hand to any and everything. I have got joy out of wielding rulvrags i fs and scrapers, of riding in freight cars and d sleeping in the straw with a race horse for I my bedfellow. And I have got it out of f ! trips on special trains, gossip with princes I and repose beneath point-lace counterpanes. s I have communed with touts that should d i have been behind the bars, and I have tried a , | pick winners for members of the clergy. have sought to study out the "chemistry .v j breeding," and I have had imparted to 0 i me, in strict secrecy, the chemistry of dop- " ing. I have sat up into the small hours ■ | vvith horsemen, talking not of horses but of 1 art, music, literature, philosophy, politics ■ science. Plutocrats have poured into my , listening ear their experiences with inhuman ■ . collectors of income taxes and proletarians ■ . have inveigled from me the wherewithal to get to the next town. And just when I ■ i begin to think that it is all an old story something new is sure to turn up. giving « J fresh zest to the perennial pursuit of — , what? For — who can define it? In truth, • t nobody. Many have tried and nobody has j succeeded in describing what it is that lures ■ t on. Even when the going is bad it is t good, because the path is not narrow, nor the ■ gate straight. The path leads everywhere - ;. and there is always sky and space ahead. PACT AND FICTION. One of the pleasures of the turf to me • : the condition that fact and fiction are so thoroughly blended in all its angles and ! aspects. The uncertainty that "makes horse r to racing" extends to all of its by-products. , Vou may believe what you like— or disbelieve. .. of either process joy can be extracted j you have the knack. I have even known to be extracted from a losing ticket, though that method I would not allopathically pre- scribe. It is best used in homeopathic dosage. , One of the things in which I have found and fiction mingled of late has been n big winnings of foreign horses and the - prices they have sold for. American money, some years past, has been the most valuable in the world. But by a "reverse - lOnglish" it has lost its parity when the " g computations of winners on the other side have been computed for us — by people on the 10 4 other side. t0 to KSARS AMBIGUOUS RECORD. ] Take the case of the French hero of the G G! moment. Ksar. At the conclusion of the C * season of 1*23 the news — important, if true e Sj was wafted across the Atlantic that he e 6: deposed Isinglass from the pre-eminence " e 6! son of Isonomy so long had occupied as ■ largest money winner in thoroughbred d W history — the sum accredited to him being g 91,275. Ksar. it was stated, had won, at t ln , close of the season of 1922, when he e j, retired to the stud, over 30,000. M Knowing the great decline in the value e French cuirency during the period cov- - by the racing career of the son of f Re Biulrur and Kizil Kourgan from its pic- - °y by estate, this statement, at the time made, seemed a surprising one. How was it pos- u° good that the France of 1920-22 could pro- " • "*j such gigantic winnings in a period of financial depression for a horse which. /•, though obviously a remarkable one, had I • but twice as a two-year-old, seven 1 old o.ds ,a at three and six at four— a total of C 50: fifteen starts, of which he had won eleven. Whereas, in previous years, when J„ franc was at par value, other French ,, cracks, like Sardanapale. Maintenon. La Ca- G9 margo, Ajax. etc., had won such vastly 69 smaller sums — Saidanapale. with eleven vie- ■ 69 being credited with but 11. .".O.j ; Main- 69 thirteen victories, with but 81 705 , „ .J *;• «2 The secret of this strange result has been I i revealed to me. however, after a brief ad- str; venture into the mazes of foreign exchange T subject calculated to give even an inter- •-.,v — L"~° O national banking expert a headache. Stated in francs, the winnings of Ksar .. given as follows: As a two-vear-old , bred _P 20.000; as a three-year-old. 944.160; as a four-year-old. r,s7.86r,. Irand total, for his goo aaa4 career. 1.SS2.P2S francs. ttie the The par value of the franc, pre-war, was s equivalent to 19.28 cents in American money, ■ it was the courtesy custom, when figur- 69 French francs, to give them a slight • margin of benefit and calculate the value I iS ing. the franc at flat 20 cents. But shortly the outbreak of the World War. in the Im i„ summer of 1914. depreciation set in 69 Covernment efforts to stabilize the value 6*fl the franc at par were strenuously mad ,i!,:! finally had to be given up and it fell to ?«l low ebb. touching bottom, for the war 69 . period, at CM cents— less than a third if! 665 normal value. After the war closed in No- «8 vember, 1918. fresh efforts were made to 6** 6H890 it up to pre-war value and keep it but these proved fruitless because of SjJ Place. general economic conditions. By March. Kitty ■* it was again at lowwvater mark— 6 0.1 stra Ksar made his debut as a two-year-old ..,0 S ter-in 1920. During that year the value of the in American money, fluctuated U w time it was up as high as 9.31 cents. t ,la! another it fell as low as 5.38 cents. During! •I j. of of the he sal The ss and ise far are ire why hy and a- y U" rs en J M rc re Y. of of in in in am is .h the 16 1 to to i fs I d I of f ! I s I d i | a , .v j to 0 i " ■ | of 1 ■ , ■ . ■ . I ■ i « J , • t j ■ t t ■ - ;. • : ! r to , .. j , _ 19 1 conditions were still worse, the highest iest value reached being 8.S1 cents, while the the lowest fell to :,.so cents. During 1922 there ere was some improvement and a high value of of ndlbemgTsivr8 ,eaL■he,, "" °«~ res It us apply these quotations to the win-ar in- n.ngs of Ksar if we wish to know accuratelv ely what they were, as expressed in American an money values. The sum figures out a. fol-£ ol- STh. i1",19:0 US a "-year-old, 20.000. 100. $ »£ W25 ValU0 of the fr:lni bat vear. ar JJ«.hmi, as a three-year-old. 941.160. 60 VUlUe °f the f™™- "at m «fin -nSheSt ear ar. S6o. £ at ,;J?,: the ".,-,i!22- US a -year-old. 587.-.. ;;_. highest value of the franc that tat year. $.,5,082.95. Grand total, 36 825 45 In making these calculations it will be be observed that Ksar in each instance ws as g.ven the benefit of the highest value at. at#- henrace5y T f°r the ar j" -"kh he raced. As a matter of strict verity it is is impossible that these values should have prevaded throughout the periods in which S he ?hov,T an;,.i,, °onseflue"- " J certain that m the value of his winnings, in ready cash sh, he HOW THE FIGURES SHRINK. ,Hah,in? him eVery nossible advantage of he highest rates of exchange for the last i"oonn0a.rS- :iS VaUnted «**• of over LS Lr $...0,000 shrunk to 36,825.45. Instead ol ol being the largest money-winning thorou-h- 1,. bred fa the world. Ksar has actuallv placed ed it lu l- mUCh leSS tnan balf as mu.h ,1, as the winnings of Isinglass 91 175 in m Lngland. little more than half as much as M !lanf»r;ar 49,465. in America, and »■ about 5,000 less than Frances real pre-» e- afar. Sardanapale 211.505. In actual cash sh value of winnings. Ksar is surpassed by some IU. nineteen different : Knglish horses, seven in in America, four in France and three in Aus-T. s- t.alas.a. while in Argentina one Uotafogo •I I h.as approximated, if he has not really ex- x- I celled him. The process by which Ksars winnings have .e , been so stupendously ] inflated, for American m consumption, recalls the similar circumstances 3JJ that attended the Orand Premio given in honor r Of King Alfonso at San Sebastian. Spain last st September. The information was at first sent across the ocean that this was the most st valuable race ever contested, the gross value ie : being 00,000. But when the financial ev- perts got at it and applied the current rates ■ J of exchange it developed that the 00 000 must be revised to read 3,000. Whereas LS the I . S. A. could show that the value of the ie Futurity, run at Sheepshead Bay in 1890— _ s thirty-two years before— had been 7,675 to 0 f the winner. Potomac, while the second d s colt. Masher, received ,125. and the third , ■ a Stratb.meath. .875-making l the gross value e of the event 3,675. ti In that dramatic E classic of yester-year. r "Sis Hoiikins." the heroine, as unforgetablv S impersonated by Miss Rose Melville, at a t very tense moment made the remark, as the e villain of the play was seeking her signature e a legal document that would have turned d z the old folks out into the cold, cold world : • "Dont see no use doin nothin for nobody that H never did nothin for me." Its quite that ,. way as regards the inflation of European ■ racing values at the expense of our own. • p Whats the use of doing anything for anybody that never did anything for us. L,
