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Yes, We Have No Stake Horses Today , BY SALVATOR. j j I i . I ! . j ! j I I have been meditating if that be the proper term upon the late great ? 0,000 race, the Kentucky Special, run at Latonia on Saturday, October 6, and some of the conclusions derived therefrom may be worth placing upon paper, and the paytism of type. Such an event ought prescriptively to be thus productive, else it has failed of its purpose, howsoever otherwise it may have fared. The net result of my musing has been the title which I have placed above one which, all too irresistibly, suggested itself. It is not so much an echo of the pervasively popular lyric of the moment as a statement of solemn fact That is, if anything essentially farcical can be conceived of as in any way solemn. But these subtleties of verbalism I leave to the recondite and pass on. Superficially, the Kentucky Special was an enormous success. The "reasons why" ?: 1 It was for an enormous sum of money 59,350, plus a gold cup. 2 It achieved an enormous amount of publicity. 3 It at-, tracted an enormous crowd. 4 It brought to the post an enormous field as fields go nowadays. 5 It was the medium of an enormous amount of speculation. 6 If had an enormously surprising outcome. 7 It must have been enormously profitable to the promoters and to the winning ownera s for the "general public" especially the speculative public well, .as the Russians say, "Nitche vo." Which, being interpreted, means "Never mind." SEVEX A MYSTIC NUMBER. As seven is a mystic number, I will not farther extend my list of reasons. Assuredly those given are sufficient, are they not, to support the thesi3 in whose behalf they are marshaled? So much, therefore, for the superficial aspects of the event and its success. But when we probe deeper and ask for something not merely superficial, what do we get? In all candor, there can be but one answer; to-wit nil, nihil, nothing. Should not a 9,350 race, with a gold cup to the winner, have some deeper implications? Should it not do a bit, if no more, toward that ineffable endeavor, the improvement of the breed of horses? Should it not be an exposition of racing greatness something which we could proudly hold up to the world as a triumphant exposition of the prowess of the American thoroughbred, as a certificate, of his grandeur and a title-deed for his fame? Even a sophisticated person might so assume. But such assumptions have nothing to do with the case of the reverberant race at Latonia on October 6, for the good and sufficient reason that as an exposition of greatness, grandeur or "class" it was the most preposterous "bloomer" within the memory of any turfman, be he neophyte or veteran. An assertion which can be readily proved by a few "facts and figures." SIXTEEN IN FIELD. A field of twenty-two horses was slated to go to the post, but at post time this was reduced to sixteen one of the biggest handicap fields of recent years in a big event And here are a few revelatory statistics regarding their class I have set down the number of races each had recently won, the weight each should, under the scale, have carried, the weight actually carried, and the number of pounds each was in concession of from the handicapper. Here is the exhibit:. 3l 02 iJ - M 3 3 g 2? 38" go 5 Horse and Age. 3 . 0 d . s PS 2.5- : o 3. : p 5 . 5" a. : ; 3 . Chacolet 5 ... 103 126 23 5 in 13 1 In Mcmoriam 3.. 113 120 7 4 In 11 2 Shuffle Along 3.. 100 120 11 7 in 12 3 Knobbie 5 122 120 4 4 in 9 4 Oui Oui 3 104 120 16 2 in 11 5 Vigil 3 107 120 13 1 in 11 6 Spot Cash 3 112 120 8 5 in 10 7 Actuary 3 .......104 120 16 5 in 12 8 Untidy 3 113 120 7 3 in 11 9 Cherry Pie 3 112 120 8 4 in 11 10 Lord Granite 3 . . .101 120 19 1 in 10 11 15e.5t Pal 6 109 126 17 1 in 11 12 Whiskaway 4 119 120 7 3 in 10 13 Dream Maker 3... 101 120 19 1 in 8 14 Hopeless 3 105 120 15 1 in 12 15 Frigate 5 114 126 12 5 in 10 16 These figures are derived from the charts in DAILY RACING FORM and the weight scale of -the Kentucky Racing commission, and are, I believe, scrupulously correct. It will be observed, upon scrutinizing them, that, to begin with, the handicapper placed anything but an exalted estimate upon these horses. Not a single one of them was asked to carry weight for age. The nearest ap- proach thereto was the case of Knobbie, which had but four pounds off scale. He went to the post third favorite, at 555 to 100, and finished a weary fourthhe "tired dur ing the stretch run," says the chart In Memoriam, Untidy and Whiskaway were rated next best by the handicapper, each having seven pounds off scale. They finished second, ninth and thirteenth respectively. In Memoriam may be said to have run the best race of any horse that started, but after looking all over a winner until a furlong from home, he faltered and was beaten beaten by a quasi-brood mare that came from far back and just ran past all the ethers at the end of the contest, she having no less than twenty-three pounds off scale. It is needless to hold a post-mortem upon all the "dead ones" that ploughed home behind the leaders. Most of them gave melancholy exhibitions. We may say that Vigil, which broke down in the race, had his excuse. But could we legitimately expect anything of a colt that had been unable to win but one race in his last eleven? If we examine the column headed "No. wins in recent starts," however, we gain a still better insight into the lack of class of the field, as a lot. CHACOLETS LIGHT WEIGHT. Let us consider for a moment the winner, Chacolet. Here is a mare, five years old, with 103 pounds up, whereas the scale required her to carry 126 she therefore naving a twenty-three-pound pull in the weights. She is an imported animal and first raced in this country last year, when, as a four-year-old, she was able to win but twice and was seven times unplaced in eleven races, demonstrating not a stitch of class. . This season, while the chart showed her as winning five of her last thirteen starts, so poor were the quality of her performances that, with twenty-three pounds concession from the handicapper, she yet went to the post virtually at 22 to 1. What is more, if reports be correct and I assume that it is in her case she was considered of so little account as a race mare last spring that she was bred to Brown Prince II. and is now thought to be with foal by him having been kept on racing in order to pick up a little money here and there as occasion offered. We might say that in one way the management of Chacolet was a brilliant instance of turf strategy on the part of her owner, Hal Price Headley, who made her the medium of one of the biggest and most sensational "coups" in handicap history. But did Mr. Headley send the mare to the post with any particular confidence of her winning, after the manner of owners who have, by deep-laid plans and tactics worthy of a Turenne, elaborately worked up to such a consummation? The information at hand does not solor the idea. A FUTILE DISTANCE. Much complaint has been heard from the few valiant and lonely souls who really cherish a desire for the improvement of the breed of horses i. e., American thoroughbreds that so important an event as the Kentucky Special should be conditioned at so futile and hybrid a distance as a mile and three-sixteenths. Considering that it is not run until the season of frosts and fallen leaves, is for so immense a sum of money, is played up as a national affair and is supposed to, test the capacities of the best horses in America, these unsatisfied ones have demanded, and reiterated the demand, that tne race be conditioned at a mile and a half at least, but preferably at a mile and six furlongs, if not at two miles, or two and a quarter. But do these well-meaning but too visionary and impracticable persons, realize what such a distance would do to such a field as started at Latonia? Considering the way in which they staggered home all but the winner at the end of a mile and three-sixteenths, how in the world would they ever have gone a mile and a half, to say nothing of two miles, or two and a quarter? Let us draw a veil over the tableau that must have eventuated. POORLY TRAINED AND RIDDEN. Yet are our horses themselves so much to be faulted as the manner in which they are trained and ridden? They went away at Latonia full tilt and ran themselves into the ground as fast and furiously as possible and then the brood mare, which had not overexerted herself in the early stages, came along and choked them to death in the stretch. Not because she possessed any particular class or speed, but because she was alive and they were dead it amounted to that. The fact that the race was run in 1:5C?5, the track record for the distance being 1:5GVand, means nothing in particular. It is a hybrid distance at which few stake races are run, especially by the best horses. Oh, for the presence of a few real stake horses in such a race ! An Exterminator, Grey Lag, or Zev ; a Man o War, Sir Barton or Roamer ; an Old Rosebud, Cudgel or Eternal ; or, in default of such as these, even a Mad Hatter, a Boniface, a Thunderclap, a Cirrus, a Borrow, a Boots or a Stromboli ! Something to give class, distinction, memo-rableness, to the event, instead of a herd of platers, supers and lizards. The story of the Kentucky Special should do something toward arousing those who control the conditions and the destinies of racing in this country to the shabby state of affairs that now prevails and spur them to some effort to ameliorate it- Never in the history of the American turf were great stakes so many, never vere stake horses so few. When such races are possible as was the Kentucky Special, what hope is there for the future unless there be a speedy and permanent change in affairs?
