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Causes and Consequences BT SALVATOR. As is well remembered, when Papyrus made his voyage across the Atlantic last fall to meet Zev at Belmont Park, he was accompanied, among others, by a prominent British snorting scribe, who came along to represent one of the big London dailies, while ho also contributed a number of articles about the international affair and its affairs to some of the metropolitan prints. Since he has returned home his American experiences have quite naturally afforded him much ammunition for the exercise of his typewriter and some of his lucubrations have been reprinted on this side owing to their out of the common quality of interest. One of these contributions which has attracted more than a little attention haw to do with the dinner given to the visiting Britishers as a sort of farewell function, just prior to their departure on the return voyage. In it he quotes various notable American turf magnates, some of whom he reports as voicing earnest sentiments regarding the "status of racing in America- at the present time. According to them, it leaves much to be desired, and for that condition they gave various reasons. It is notorious that words thus spoken are not always reported with strict accuracy. "Without impugning the veracity, or desire to misquote nobody, of the reporter, it is a human failing of the species to quite often get things on paper and into print so that they read quite differently to their authors from what they intended to say, or supposed they said. In such circumstances, it in not at all uncommon for these speakers to disavow the remarks attributed to them, or to rephrase them in such a way as to alter, if not entirely . contradict, their meaning as printed. PROBABLY CORRECT REPORTS. In so far as the dinner in question is concerned, and what was said at it according to our British visitor there is no reason to think that he has misquoted or misconstrued much of anybody or anything of consequence. It is possible that some of the turfmen whom he quotes might, had they known he was going publicly to chronicle their remarks, have worded them a bit differently; and in any case, it is not unlikely that they did word them somewhat differently than he records. But in substance, they probably expressed the sentiments attributed to them. This being so, it is interesting to observe what these sentiments are. I shall "name no names." One eminent representative of the American turf, stating that American breeders and trainers "had not progressed in the right difection," gave the causes for tins as being that tbey "had inherited too many of the Ideas learned from trotting. Bace courses are so shaped and constructed that everything is under the noses, as it were, of the public." Continuing, he said that in America we have "gone in for mathematical accuracy until we were slaves of the watch" and that the American turfmans aim is to "run a race at average speed, furlong for furlong, throughout." The speaker, says our reporter, "told them bluntly i. e., his American auditors that such methods will never breed a great horse." A CASE OF OVEREMPHASIS. I think I discern here perhaps a trifle of overemphasis, due to the reporters inherited British bias against that much-berated piece of mechanism, "the watch." But at this late day it is probably impossible to ever do much toward weaning the American turfman away from the watch. He has found nothing that will take its place in his operations and from most points of view, prefers Its "mathematical accuracy" to a non-mathematical test, for the simple reason that nothing of the latter variety has ever convinced him of its superiority. I doubt If "the watch" will ever be discarded here, and if it is to be the cause of a continuous "facilis descensus" to still lower depths than those in which turf affairs now flounder, I fear that still lower we are apt to fall. The question of the size, shape and construction of American courses, and the foolish following of trotting methods and models la an old moot point. There are arguments for both sides. Personally I will aver that I prefer, and vastly, to see a race run over a plain, or "regulation," elliptical mile course, to any other. I have watched racing over some of the great European courses when the contending horses were so far, far away a great deal of the .time that they might as well have been racing on another planet. Even through a strong binocular one had the sensation of watching a lot of insects, rather than animals of the genus equus that would average around sixteen hands in height. BETTER TOR THE SPECTATOR. It is pleasant to the spectator to watch racing when he can see the horses at least, in all humility, I will submit that it is to me. The immense rambling courses of England, in particular, originated long, long ago, when racing was really nothing but the pastime of a few great magnates. If the public I will not say the gate-paying, public, for such a thing did not then exist, these courses being then as many of them still are unenclosed managed to obtain a glimpse of the horses as they rounded some particular "corner" or passed some "dip" or "ditch," they felt well satisfied. To have anything like a comprehensive view of a great race, from start to finish, was not dreamed of in their aspirations. As i generations of Englishmen have been br-rl up in this tradition for centuries, it is only natural that they should cling to it But in effect it resembles nothing so mucli as : squeezing into a theater to see one act of a play and then reading about the rest of it in " the next mornings papers. Even the old-time American courses were : not of this description those which were . constructed before trotting courses, and trotting . subserviency to the watch, began to be patterned after. From the beginning, some . sort of American propensity seemed to ordain that the course should be an approximately regular one of a mile in circumference, or at most a mile and a furlong. The reason for this probably was that from the , time racing became what we may term an "organized sport" in this country, its existence depended upon what I have described ; as a minus quantity in England, i. e., the , gate-paying public. It has been abundantly demonstrated that : in the United States of America racing Is impossible . without the large support of that ; i : : . . . , ; , : . ; public barring, of course, semi-private arid amateur functions such as Piping Rock and its genre. The American public cannot un- derstand why, having paid generously to sec the races, they should be so run over courses so constructed that they can be seen only fragmentarily. Can you imagine baseball under such conditions? Or football? Or any other great outdoor sport? One reason why motor racing has never really been able to establish itself here is because, unless staged over circular tracks or "hippodromes," the spectators could see almost nothing of the contests. All attempts to maintain as annual fixtures various much exploited events of the kind have proved failures. And when organized motordom "fall3 down" in such attempts, it is patent that nothing could "put them over." The great races which live in American turf history, that were run in the early decades of the nineteenth century and the later ante-bellum days, were run over circular mile courses, built long before trotting had attained anything but the most fugitive status or possessed anything to be copied, either models or methods. The famous old Long Island courses the Union, the Fashion, etc., which came into being nearly a century ago; the Metairie at New Orlc-o s, the old courses at Lexington and Louisville, were all of this description and the men who built them and managed them, and ran horses over them, knew nor cared nothius about harness racing or its ways and means. I confess to being frankly puzzled, therefore, at the declaration that we "will never breed a great horse" if we continue to race over similar tracks. History certainly does not uphold that view. For those whose names stand out in our turf history were for the most part bred and raced when such tracks were the rule, not the exception. The era of "magnificent distance:; in the construction of American race tracks dates at the close of the eighties. The first meeting at Morris Park was held in 1SS9 and the reconstructed Monmouth Park was thrown open to the public in the early summer of 1S90, with its straightaways of lengths previously unheard of in America, over which records went to smash as a daily matter. But neither of these great racing plants was ever as popular with the public of the metropolis as either Sheepshead Bay or Brighton Beach. It is true the latter were more quickly reached. But it is also true that the public vastly preferred them becauso they could "see the racing" so much better than they could over the grandiose stretches in Westchester County or at Long Branch. A 3IISTAKEX IDEA. I am puzzled, too, at the denunciation of system tic "rating" in races, quoted above. The capacity to "rate" a horse has always been held one of the highest attributes of jockey ship. But, for that matter, are our races run systematically on the "rating" plan? If the analyst will refer to the fractional times of our contests, as given so accurately and faithfully by Daily Racing Form, he will discover that most of them are not run on that plan. It is notorious that as a rule races nowadays, while run "fiom end to end," in a way formerly unknown, see, systematically, the "front end" run at a much faster rate than the "back end." In other words, as sprinting is the rule and the getaway and a good early position vital, the horses go off from the barrier as if all the money was hung up at the first furlong or quarter ; and, alas, all too often they stagscr home at a pace many seconds slower. My word need not be taken for this. The facts and figures are of record and may easily bn consulted, as aside from the personal knowledge which all racegoers possess at first hand. What real "rating" can do was, however, exposed last October when Chacolet so sensationally triumphed in that 50.000 handicap at Latonia. Her victory was due to the fact that she was ridden a "rating" race and almost solely to that fact; aside, of course, from the other one that she. had a tremendous pull in the weights. Let us pass now, however, to the utterances of a second eminent turfman at the banquet in question, as recorded by our English visitor. They followed those of the first one quoted and are reported to have been of this tenor: HARSH SETTI3IETS. "We have not got three four-year-olds in America worth a damn. Everybodyhas gone crazy over fast time. Everything is being sacrificed to it. The result is that today horses are being maimed. The courses .ire so damned hard that if you get a horse fast enough, then he will hurt himself." The remedy for this evil condition was described as a patterning after English race courses, with their superior size, different grades and turns, wide variances in shape and differences in footing. Just how much of this doctrine our scribe may somewhat have loud-pedaled in his "write-up" I will not pretend to say. But it is difficult for me to believe that the gentleman upon whom it is fathered was speaking so thoughtlessly, especially in view of his wide experience. One may grant, in the beginning, that American track-builders and v.ianagers may have gone on occasion too far in their lust for record-breaking; that in doing so they have lost sight of the fact that something of safety has been sacrificed. But when the conditions in England are cited as proof of this, one can only marvel. The fact is that English conditions are practically a parallel of those here at home. The English press is full of weeping and wailing over the "monstrous regiment" of cripples that modern racing methods make. The standing complaint of all serious and reflective writers there is the disappearance from the turf of the great racers of four years old and over. The constant criticism is of the decadence of tlw great all-aged classics, because of the deartli of horses that can be brought to the pest for them. I have before me as I write perhaps the most arresting example of theee utterances that has recently appeared. It was contributed to "Country Life" English a few months ago by no less distinguished a per-. sonage than Gerald S. Davies, the Master of Charterhouse, one of the most notable edu-, cational institutions of Creat Britain. Ameri-. cans holding such positions do not concern themselves with turf affairs which is to be regretted. The text of the Master of Charterhouse was, "Our Thoroughbreds," and l.is critique was elicited by a previous article contributed by "Phiilipos," the turf editor of "Country Life." This article had been entitled, "Do "We Place Our Thoroughbreds Too Much?" To which question the Master of Charterhouse replies with a very emphatic "Yes !" . Modern turf methods, says the eminent educator, are entirely too strenuous. This applies not only to racing itself, but the entire regimen of the race horse. As a result, by the lime he has reached the age of four years, often by the time he has reached that of three, he is "done for." That this is the. truth, no experienced turfman can successfully deny. It is idle to attempt to do so. And as the condition exists, in just as aggravated a form, in England as in America, it is apparent that no amount of remodeling of American race tracks, no dispensing with the "tyranny of the watch," or anything else of that kind, is going to do any good whatever. To indulge that hope is to nourish oneself upon "such stuff as dreams are made of." No statistics are available as yet for 1923, nor does the American Racing Manual of a year ago give any specialized ones regarding the volume of two- and three-year-old racing in this country, as compared with that of the whole body of our thoroughbreds. But it is easy to diagnose the situation from figures that are available. As a "specimen brick" let us take the first part of the section entitled "Bace Horse Becords for 1922" and see what it reveals. As regards two-year-olds the exhibit is as follows : Under the letter "A" there appear a total of thirty-seven different two-year-olds. These thirty-seven two-year-olds ran no l;s than 4 14 races during the season. Among others we find such items as these : Athlete started forty-one times ; Antonia started thirty times, Adventuress started twenty-five times, Auntis Em started twenty-one "times, Al Stebler started nineteen times, Aladdin started eighteen times, etc. Turning now to the table of "Sires of Two-Year-OId Winners of 1922" let us take the returns condensed upon the ten leading sirej, as follows : No. No. Siw. Winners. Races. Atheling 17 159 Sweep 15 ISO Ultimus 15 134 Rock View 14 20S Celt 13 1C9 Theo. Cook 13 109 Broomstick 12 102 Dick Fimiell 12 141 Black Toney 11 99 Ballot 10 111 Total 132 1.493 This yields a straight average for 132 different two-year-olds of nearly twelve race3 each, or practically the same as that of the "A" two-year-olds, above referred to. The sire table, however, accounts only for winners. None of the non-winners is listed. A PEW EXAMPIiES. Analysis of this sire table throws further light on the contemporary use made of our two-year-olds. Lady Myra, the leading representative of Atheling II., raced twenty-three times and ran unplaced no less than fourteen; Dearie, by Sweep, raced forty times and was unplaced twenty-one; Great Lady, by Ultimus, raced seventeen times and was unplaced eleven; Daniel, by Rock Vkw, raced thirty times and was unplaced fifteen; Crochet, by Celt, raced nineteen times and was unplaced twelve; Nowata, by Theo. Cook, raced twenty times and was unplaced sixteen; Spot Cash, by Broomstick, raced eighteen times and was unplaced thirteen; Dicks Daughter, the leader by Dick Finnell, raced twenty-six times and was unplaced fifteen; Blue Nose, by Black Toney, raced eleven times and was unplaced eight; Go, by Ballot, raced fourteen times and was unplaced twelve. Such figures tell their own tale. And as long as our present system of racing, whi-h places all its stress upon two and three-year-olds, and pre-emiiiently upon two-year-olds, continues to prevail, the number of four-year-olds in training, to quote the speaker reported by the visiting scribe, "worth a damn," will be negligible. It cannot be otherwise. We may throw away all our watches, rebuild our tracks arid otherwise mend our ways ; it will avail us nothing. Provision for the careful .gathering of fruit will never increase the crop so long as the axe continues to chop away the roots of the tree. -
