view raw text
Here and There on the Turf Some Preakness Stakes Deductions. Striking Failure of Last Years Form. Belmont Stakes Eligibles. There were five of the starters in the Preakness Stakes last Saturday at Pimlico that took up scale weight. They were the last five in the field of thirteen that raced. Tall Timber, the only other starter that did not have a twelve .pounds allowance, was beaten ten lengths by the first four— Vigil, General Thatcher, Rialto and Chickvale. This would tend to show that, just as was the case last year, the presumed topnotchers are so close together that not ons of them can successfully give away weight. There is no real champion in sight as yet among the three-year -olds any more than there was a d?monstrated champion among the two-year-clds of 1922. Time and again last year the two year old that seemed on its way to the two-year-old crown would fail when it was required to give away the weight a champion should give away. A proved champion needs no excuses. He gives results and overcomes the bad racing . luck that the lesser aspirant to high honors , has as his excuse tor not reaching the summit. Excuses could be offered for some of those , beaten in the Preakness Stakes, but excuses . do not win races. The easily seen feature of 1 the race, from the viewpoint of last years , form, was the utter failure of the best exponents of that form. Splendid Sallys Alley, Zev, Martingale, Goshawk, all ran like selling r platers instead of like great stars of the two-year old racing of 1922. All of the first four at the finish of the , Preakness Stakes were close enough together at the end to make any one of them the winner on another occasion over the same dis tance and under the same weights, but each was taking up twelve pounds less than scale weight. They meet in the Kentucky Derby under equal weight at 126 pounds and at that I weight they will be level with Martingale, Zev, . Goshawk. Blanc Seing and Sallys Al!ey. That will give the Churchill Downs race an entirely f different aspect and it would not be at all .1 surprising if there was an entirely different t result, so far as those which raced in the e Preakness Stakes are concerned. Trainer Thomas Healey is entitled to high ■ credit for the condition in which he brought t both Richard T. Wilsons Tall Timber and d Walter J. Salmons Vigil to the post. Until il Wilderness went amiss in his training he e seemed to be Healeys one best bet for the e ,, Preakness Stakes, but he had provided himself with two other fit ones when the son of Camp-fire and Genesta had to be laid away temporarily. Last year, before Preakness Stakes day, Pillory, 1 the celt with which Hea!ey won the same e race for Richard T. Wilson, did not appear to o class as highly among the candidates as Vigil il did this year. And Vigil was not considered d generally as being up to the class of those he would meet, but Pillcry not only won the ie Preakness Stakes for Mr. Wilson but he was is also the winner of the Belmont Stakes and f .1 t e ■ t d il e e ,, 1 e to o il d he ie is finished out the year the best money earning I horse of 1922. Vigil was a fairly good two year old last t year and had a fashion of running on at the end of his races that promised well for him as s a three year-old. But he did not accomplish jj nearly as much as some of the others and, to o say the least, did not seem good enough to 0 triumph in the Preakness. Nine of those that raced in the Preakness ;s Stakes are eligible to the Belmont Stakes, the e 0,000 guaranteed stake race of the Westchester Racing Association. This race, like the Kentucky Derby, is at scale weight and is at it a mile and three-eighths. Coming as it doe? ?s June 9 there is every chance for the Preakness 5s Stakes and Kentucky Derby starters nominated d to keep all three engagements. The Preakness starters that are eligible for the Belmont it Stakes are Vigil, Rialto, Barbary Bush, Chick-ie c- vale. Tall Timber, Hobgoblin, Martingale, e, Goshawk and Zev. It is unfortunate that it General Thatcher was not named for the Bel-d 1- mont Stakes. Sallys Alley also was not named ;d ;s e at it ?s 5s d it c- e, it 1- ;d and Better Luck, as well as Blanc Seing, are I not eligible. Others of the Belmont eligibles will prob-t- ably be shown at Churchill Downs next Sat-e urday, while still others are being reserved for June 9, when they will undertake to match themselves against the survivors of the other two 0,000 races. It is to be hoped that the various disss qualifications that have come thus early in the racing at Jamaica will have a beneficial effect on racing for the year. The stewards have shown that anything that approached rough riding will not be tolerated and when the jockeys have learned that lesson the sport will be bettered considerably. y
