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Here and There on the Turf A 0,000 Stake for Platers. Function, of Winter Racing. Good Sport at Fair Grounds. Evils of Long Programs. The Tijuana Jockey Club continues to offer eight and nine races a day at its Lower California track. The purses for the most part are ?G00 affairs. Yet the stake book recently issued by this racing organization list a number of fixtures headed by the hB10,000 Coffroth Handicap and including other evonts of 0,000 added and ,500 added. "Would it not be far better to run a seven-race program daily with adequate purses? The stakes could easily be dispensed with or at least reduced to values more commensurate with the daily purses in overnight races. The whole thing reduces itself to a question of the function of winter racing in the general turf scheme. There is one thing certain and that is that the real stake horses of the country are not going to be kept in training through the winter to compete in off-season stake races, whatever their value. On the other hand, there are plenty of horses incapable of earning their keep during the regular season which must find their only opportunities at the winter courses. Last year this then 0,000 Coffroth Handicap was won by Rebuke, a horse unable to hold his own with the selling platers on the eastern tracks during the regular season. The field was big, but there wan not a horse that faced the starter which claims top rank among the platers of the country. Did that Coffroth Handicap, in spite of its 0,000 added, contribute anything whatever to the advancement or welfare of the turf? It gave Commander J. K. L. Ross, probably the wealthiest and most successful owner in Canada, a chance to win a big sum with, a horse not worth even a small portion of the prise he won, while the owners who depend on winter racing to make both ends meet were left out in the cold. They had to take their chances with the 00 i purses. The Tijuana Jockey Club undoubtedly puts : that now 0,000, which is added to the i Coffroth Handicap, down -on the advertising budget and figures that the publicity which : it derives .from the offering of such a gigantic sum more than makes up for the expenditure. There is nothing spectacular about . daily purses of ,000 minimum, such as i are offered at the- Fair Grounds track, but the men who race the horses appreciate them a great deal more than a big stake i offering in which their racers have little or no chance. The Fair Grounds racing has attracted a i class of horses well up to the standard of overnight races offered during the regular season. Tijuana has a few horses of moderate quality, but the bulk of the racing is s confined to horses from the half mile tracks ; which are accustomed to racing for 00 I purses or even lea. i : i : . i i i s ; I The racing public likes to see horses of good class perform. If this were not the case the half-mile tracks of the country, which offer 00 purses, would attract as large crowds as the big courses. Many of these small tracks are located in communities perfectly capable of supporting the sport on a big scale, but they do not attract such crowds as the big tracks because people are not so anxious to see cheap horses perform. The Tijuana Jockey Club enjoys enormous patronage on the days when the big stakes of the meeting are run, but a great deal of this patronage could be attracted much of -tener, if the daily overnight purses were large enough to attract a better class of horses. Cheap horses cannot furnish as interesting sport as good racers and few people would go to the race tracks at all if they could not see fairly thrilling racing. This undoubtedly suggests the fact that a mere handful of the spectators often turn out for the offday racing at the border track. The arrangement of purses and stakes at the Fair Grounds comes close to being ideal for winter racing. The - stakes are not of gigantic value, but they are sufficiently large to attract the best horses that are kept in training during the winter. The overnight purses, which are never less than ,000, are attractive enough to assure fields of limit size in practically all of the races. The result is that the sport is maintained on a high plane throughout the meeting and the public, readily appreciative of good rac- ing, is supporting the association liberally. Bad weather has not been enough to keep the crowds away from the New Orleans course. As far as the eight and nine-race pro- grams are concerned, there can never be an adequate reason for such an offering. Six races are sufficient to furnish enough en- tertainment for one afternoon. Seven races are perhaps not too many, but anjr exten- sion of a racing program beyond that point savors of commercialism at its worst. Even the most rabid racing enthusiast is likely to have plenty of the sport for one day after he has seen seven races. Other races on top of a seven-race program arz like a tiresome epilogue attached to the end of a five-act tragedy. Of course, the Tijuana Jockey Club is in a foreign country and outside of the jurisdiction of American turf bodies, but there are plenty of ways in which the ruling powers of the turf could prevent a continuance of these ridiculously long programs. Racing on such a basis is not to the best interest of the turf. The Tijuana Jockey Club could fill a valuable place in winter racing if it would make an effort to cater to the needs of the winter stables ard at the same time give the public the kind of sport which is desired. Big stake races for cheap selling platers are a travesty on real fixtures of the turf and six or seven races of ,000 value would be far better than eight or nine of the 00 class.
