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Here and There on the Turf New York Welcomes the Racers. Owner Wilsons Successful Beginning. Tall Timbers Triumph Over Goshawk. Wednesday was a big day in New York. The thoroughbreds were back for the campaign of 1923 and after a long winter of idleness there was all of the early season en thusiasm among the patrons. Each year at this time there is much speculation as to whether or not there will appear in racing another Man o War. another Exterminator, Roamer, Lady Amelia, Sysonby, Artful, Sir Barton or any of the other champions of racing that in their time did more to popularise racing than any other agent. It is the horse by his mighty deeds that makes the turf endure. It is the horse, after all, that brings out the cheering crowds day after day and, just so long as the horse is supreme, racing will always be the greatest of all the sports. It will take some time to sift out the leaders in the different age divisions, for it is indeed hazardous to proclaim a champion in May. but never had the American turf much better material to draw from. It would not be surprising if before August comes along there may be another new turf idol to do his bit in keeping the sport in the high light of public favor. The turf star of Richard T. Wilson is still in th? ascendant. At Pimlico Tuesday Tall Timber took the measure of two of the leading aspirants to success in the Preakness Stakes and Kentucky Derby when he beat Gifford A. Cochrans Goshawk and J. S. Cosdens Martingale. Goshawk had been prepared at Belmont Park and was rated as one of the most advanced of the trhee-year-olds that wore trained over the big Nassau County course. He was sent to Baltimore in the pink of condition and there were high hopes that he would win the Wicomico Purse. It was only a three-quarters dash. He was fully up to such a race and was beaten easily by Tall Timber. Martingah was the Cosden hope for the big three year old races after Dunlin had failed to race to expectations at Havre de Grace and was also beaten. Like Goshawk, it was his first start of the year, but no horse at Pimlico had shown more brilliantly in his preparation than this same Martingale. Tall Timber has never been rated by Tom Healey as other than a good sprinter. Wilderness is the stable choice for the big things and he has indicated that he will go on as far as horses are asked to race. In this connection the conviction is forced that while Tom Healey has a wonderfully good string to race under the Wilson colors he has shown rare skill in bringing the horses to the post in such ex cellent condition this early in the racing year. Doubtless both Goshawk and Martingale will improve over the showing they made in the Wicomico Purse and it will not do to eliminate either of them from the promising candidates for the three-year-old stake races, but their defeat by Tall Timber was a bit of a setback right at the beginning, which was, to say the least, disappointing. The seeming champion in May will not necessarily be the champion in August and September. There are still many of th? aspirants to the champion of the three year-old division that have not yet put in an appear- ance. The racing season has just opened and those that may disappoint now have ample time to improve. Of course, with both the Preakness Stakes and Kentucky Derby so ! close at hand the winner of either one of those great races will have a big lead over its competitors, but Benjamin Blocks Morvich, after winning the Kentucky Derby of last year, did not win another race all through the year, although not starting often. Until after May 19, when both the Preakness Stakes and Kentucky Derby will have been decided, it is natural that most of the racing interest will center about the three year-olds. Those two races can hardly fail to afford a good line to Belmont Stakes probabilities, and .should do much to put the various three year-clds where they belong. But there is almost as much intere-t in the new crop of two year-olds. We all know the three year old. They raced last year and it is only a question of how they come back this year, but with the two j-ear olils it is altogether different. They are the baby racers and are coming to the turf with nothing to recommend them but blood lines, conformation and private workouts. In all of these requirements the new crop seems to measure up to the best crops of other years and it remains to be seen whether or not thry will race to what they have promised, either through pride of birth or by endeavor in trials.
