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Psychology of the Imported Yearling | By SALVATOR. ! I ! | j I J I j j I j I j I j ; ■ | i | i | j i j ; j ! ; Some years ago a friend of mine who had long been interested in thoroughbreds from the standpoint of a spectator only, decided that he would become the proprietor of a racing stable. He was a gentleman of great wealth, able to gratify any inclination which he might cherish and in the circle of his acquaintances among turfmen he had no difficulty in finding expert advisers. His ambition was not to buy up an aggregation of ready-made cracks, but to acquire fresh material only, a most laudable purpose. His objective, therefore, would naturally be the yearling sales. And his expert advisers had no difficulty in persuading him that while charity might begin at home, pros pective turf champions must be imported from over the water. The vast superiority of the authentic British thoroughbred was sedulously inculcated by his oracles, and ar he was relying upon their knowledge, of course he followed their instructions. The result was commissions, virtually carte blanche, to obtain the best that Newmarket and Doncaster afforded. BEST IN THE MARKET. It may be said, speaking conservatively, that the invoice of pur-sang which a few months later landed on our shores was the most aristocratic that ever, up to that time, had come collectively among us. Money had been expended without stint in order to obtain the best in the market. The tabulated pedigrees of these young patricians were calculated to make the mouth of the connoisseur of blood lines water, his palms itch to possess them. Such tap roots! Such top lines ! Such wondrous arrays of "figures," in every ramification. To use the figure of an auctioneer of my acquaintance who, in moments of excitement, sometimes mixed his metaphors, they were "the purple of the cream." What they cost, laid down in America — there we.re a dozen of them — it would be im- possible exactly to state, but there is every reason to believe that when all the bills were audited, it was in excess of 00,000. Which, of course, was only the beginning. Having been thoroughly indoctrinated with the gospel of pur-sang, the importer of these thoroughbred articles of virtue — indeed, they might potentially have been classified as objets dart — had every reason to expect that when in due time they appeared upon the "cramped courses — to use a British idiom — of this crude and mongrel land, nothing in the way of a native product would be able to come within gunshot of them. But alas, how differently did things turn out ! Of the entire lot, just one developed into a genuine stake colt. He won some brilliant races as a three-year-old, though his two-year-old career was not electrical. The rest — well, let us not insist upon the sordid details. None of them was better than a selling plater and some were worse than even that. ONLY ONE SUCCEEDS. All these racers were of the masculine : gender — they were colts exclusively, no fillies i being among them. Their importer had been ; told that there was a crying need in America j for British-bred male thoroughbreds, in order j that the degenerate race of American run- ; r-ers might be uplifted and improved. Few ; of them lingered long on the turf, as I have | said, and only one of them could be in any ! way considered an ornament thereof. A British commentator, at the time of their ; importation, dwelt upon the great reinforce- I nient which, later on, they would be "to the j rather indifferent band now masquerading | as stallions in the Blue Grass." But today the only one of the lot to be found there is the solitary one which, as a race horse, ever paid his way. All the others have disap- pcared into the vast inane, or its equivalent. One of hem did, I think, drift into the staff of remount satllions. Whether he still remains there I am unaware. There could not have been a more choicely-bred lot of colts imported than were these. Their ancestries at every step were ultra-aristocratic. They were also carefully selected out of hundreds of the best that England afforded on the score of individual merit. The best talent procurable was assigned the task of training them. The foremost jockeys were mounted upon them. The shrewdest turf tacticians — or people so considered — managed them. But with the one exception noted anything more dismal than the results could not well be imagined. This is only one brief chapter from the long-continued "serial tale of woe" in which the experiences of buyers of British yearlings for American turf purposes have been recorded. In a recent article contributed to Daily Racing Form I alluded to the historic fact that out of the great number of English-bred thoroughbreds that had raced in America, few had ever accomplished anything deserving of permanent remembrance. For the most part they have been inconspicuous, except in the sense that anything "imported" is conspicuous merely by virtue of that fact. However, this will not prevent American turfmen from continuing to buy British yearlings. They find it impossible to resist the seduction — something not at all difficult to account for in view of the many and alluring aspects which the said sedm-tion can assume. The importation of British and other foreign yearlings is an expensive, but an absorbing pastime. The imported cachet, especially the Newmarket or Doncaster hallmark, has a glamor all of its own. The American heart yearns for it, the American pocket book flies open and turns itself inside out for it, with a spontaneity innate and un-dissembled. It resembles the American passion for Parisian lingerie and Viennese prima donnas. Much of the drapery that oringinates in the Rue de la Iaix for the embellishment of the female form divine has nothing on — and is quite often a considerable off — the Fifth avenue product. Most of the Viennese prima donnas sing no better, if as well, than varir-ous American sopranos who hailed orininally from Mauch Chunk or Oskaloosa. But an enraptured Metropolitan public will pay 0 per seat to hear the former warble, while the latter solace their souls by barn-storming or doing the Chautauquas. A DIFFERENT PROBLEM. Why is the imported yearlings as a rule so disappointing as a performer on American courses? Considering his vast superiority — or that which is claimed for him— in comparison with our base-born native varlets, the "why of if is indeed a problem. Perhaps they resent their environment. Their proud patrician natures may feel outraged at the rabble with which they are forced to mix and mingle; and with a loftiness of spirit worthy of a better cause, they prefer not to exert themselves to beat such trash. A turf scribe of the "palmy days" never used the word quit of a race horse. When a steed clamped his toes into the track shortly after making the turn for home and declined to "come on," this scribe would write elegantly that King of the Winds "relaxed his efforts." How many of our importations do that? But it is not possible that we might find the reason to be purely psychic. If they chose, probably they could run right over top of the rabble out in front. But, like nil members of the haut noblesse, they abhor the crowd and care not to exert themselves in order to win cheap glory from it. Could they speak, probably they would say: "Verily, it is greater to win a selling race at Epsom than a Kentucky Derby or a Saratoga Cup. Go to! Why should we hustle for these bloody hAmericans:" And accordingly, few of them do.
