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Twenty Years Ago Today Chief Turf Event: of Jan. 23, 1904 Racing at New Orleans, Los Angeles and Oakland. The program at New Orleans today was replete with high-class races, which called out the best thoroughbreds at the Crescent City track. The main attraction on the card resulted in the biggest kind of an upset when S. W. Streett and Co.s Pert Royal, at odds of 25 to 1, won the Cotton Selling Stakes, defeating such cracks as Floyd K., De Reszke, Mynheer, Exclamation, Morning Star and others, accomplishing the task in an easy manner, finishing two lengths before De Reszke, the latter a half length before Floyd K. Floyd K., De Reszke and Charley Thompson were expected to fight it out between themsslves, but the latter was eliminated at the start when he reared up and was practically left at the post. Scorpio added another win to his long list when he captured the third race, at five-eighths, from Ascension and Big Ben. Another good band met in the fifth race. S. C. Hil-dreth furnished the winner in his bay gelding Hands Across, second place falling to Ethics and third to The Messenger. Daily Racing Forms indexes show that over tracks of which it printed charts of racing in 1903 5,477 horses started. Of these 2,372 won races and so, in whole or part, paid their training and other expenses. On this showing 3,105 horses raced without winning. Very significant of the disappointments attending the careers of horses of which much was expected. Sixteen horses, five years old and over, won ten or more races in 1903. Of these double-figure winners Kenilworth, Miss Mae Day and Benckart were the leaders in a tie of thirteen races won. Kenilworth is by nature a high-class race horse, Miss Mae Day a fleet and enduring mare when at her best and Benckart merely a useful selling plater. There was another tie for second place between Carbuncle, Golden Rule and Malster, each having won ten races. Outside of Kenilworth, the real stars of this division, such as Chuctanunda, Blues, Herbert, Rochampton, Co-burg, Douro, Six Shooter and Tayon, did not start in many races, mute testimony to the deterring effects of infirmities that generally serve to limit the thoroughbreds career to a brief three or four years.
