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The Spinach, Please ! BY SALYATOB BY SALVaTOR. "What does the name of that great French colt mean Epinard?" said a friend to me the other day. "I suppose it has a meaning, but as I dont knew French, it has me guessing. Can. you tell me?" "Will you promise not to be surprised?" I quiried. "Sure. Fire away." "Well, in one word of plain English it means spinach." "Go to ! Youre not giving it to me straight !" "There, what did I tell you ? You promised not to be surprised and you are not only guilty of being so, but accuse me of cheating. Of course youre not obliged to believe me. But just stop into any book siore and ask to look at a French dictionary and you will find me veracious." "Spinach ! Huh ! What in hades did they ever call the best three-year-old in Europe Spinach for? Couldnt they find anything better than that?" HOW NAME WAS DERIVED. "I grant you, when the meaning is known, it seems like a very inappropriate name for a great race horse. But it is a follow-on from that of his dam.Epine-Blanche, which means White Thorn, and is the French equivalent of the name of his granddam, the American-bred mare by Nasturtium. Of course theres no connection in meaning between spinach and white thorn, but the colt got his name alliteratively. Beyond that, however, you shouldnt inquire too closely into the meanings of the names of many European racers. You are apt to run onto many things just as bad or worse than Epinard. Names and words that sound very fine to artless Yankees are apt to mean things as common as ditch water." Name or no name, Epinard, by his performance in the Cambridgeshire, has "set the seal to his greatness." It is instructive to read the chorus of praise that the English sporting press has accorded him. For a losing performance it is quite extraordinary. One of the best critics on the Cambridgeshire that has come under my notice is that of "Phillipos" in "Country Life." He stamps Epinard as unquestionably the best three-year-old in Europe, meaning the world, an opinion in which the judicial horsemen will concur. He gees on to say that he could undoubtedly have won both the English and French Derbys had he been eligible to those events, but unfortunately he was not. American horsemen have many of them wondered why Epinard did not contend for any of the real "classics" of France and England, instead of being used in handicaps and secondary stakes, but this course was obligatory as he was -not entered for the classics. THE REASON WHY. The "reason why" is instructive. He was not thought well enough bred! Here we get another sidelight on what the anti-American propaganda, is doing to horses that -have the "American stain." Not only is it debarring them from European stud books, but it is working against their opportunities for turf success. If Epinard was not considered well enough bred to be entered for the French and English Derbys, the Grand Prix de Paris, etc., it was without question due to his double "American stain." Not only was his granddam White Thorn, by Nasturtium American bred and carrying, through her sire, more than one strain of blood "outside the pale" of pur-sang propaganda; his sire, Badajoz, carries the blood of the American plebeian, Lexington, as I described in Daily Racing Form some time ago. There could be no doubt that this was what qualified Epinard for omission from the entry lists to the French and English "classics," and it illustrates what prejudice can do to a great race horse in the effort to discredit something it wishes to suppress. For a horse cf his extraordinary merit, the money winnings of Epinard are comparatively small. They are far less than those of colts which he can not only beat, but can actually leave up the stretch in a horse race. The best French three-year-old "classic" winners of 1923 have been Filibert de Savoie, Massine and Niceas, and the best French critics rate Epinard able to give any or all of them a twenty pound beating. The talk that Epinard is not able to go the "classic" distances, a mile and a half and beyond, is discounted by the fact that his owner, M. Wertheimcr, announces himself willing to match him at any distance up to 3,000 meters against anything that wants to tackle him. But the impressive thing about it all is that arrangements are being made or are endeavoring to be made with a view to having Epinard placed in the stud in England ! After all the "bunk" and "hokum" about pur-sang, and the necessity of preserving the British thoroughbred, the "great national asset and monopoly," from contamination proceeding from American shores, here are the British breeders clamoring it amounts to that for the opportunity to breed their choice matrons to a horse doubly afflicted with the "American stain" not only, but that in his physical characteristics, according to English critics, displays a resemblance to the American rather than the orthodox British type. BROABMINDED BRITISH BREEDERS. Are British breeders unpatriotic? Or are they a bigger and broader minded set of men than the commercialists who are in the saddle at Newmarket and willing to pay homage to greatness without sordid motives or parti-pris? It would seem that way, so let us appreciate the fact and set it down as a substantial item helping to offset the campaign of depreciation and abuse that has for so long emanated from their country to the prejudice of this. The performances of Epinard, of Yfcrdict, of Rose Prince and of Mumtaz Mahal this season in England show how senseless and unjust was the anti-American crusade set afoot over a decade ago- But there is a law superior to all rules that may be laid down by human authority, however exalted, and that is the law of the "survival of the fittest." It is today apparent that no fiat, by any organization, can blot out the "American stain" nor prove it unfit to mingle with the best blood of the world, wherever found. "Talk is cheap," said a character in a famous American drama of years gone by, "but money buys the land." Talk about "contamination" and "pollution" of the thoroughbred breed by the "American stain" henceforth can only render the talker foolish in the estimation of intelligent horsemen. It has already done Americas interests incalculable injury, some of which was intensified by unthinking Americans themselves, momentarily misled or imposed upon by the ex-cathedra accent and pontifical pronunciamcntos of propagandists. But its power for evil has shrunk to a mere nothing in comparison with what it threatened to be. The time is forever past when it will be thought proper to apologize for the presence of American blood in a thoroughbred anywhere in the world. And it will never return. That they are "passing the spinach" at Newmarket establishes that fact and copper-rivets it to boot.
