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t j : 1 j , 1 I i i 1 1 | i • 1 [ i FRENCH IN ENGLISH RACES a William Allison Fears Handicap -pers Making Gifts to France. a Thinks l.nglisli Horses Overweiphied anil French Horses in Too Light for h em pi on Jubilee. » , French successes of last season in England have aroused considerable anxiety in Knglish turf circles over possible developments during the coming Sanson. It is realized that French breeding and racing have enjoyed an enor- j m us advance during recent years and that England may well look to her laurels. William Allison, the special commissioner of j the London Sportsman, linds a new menace in what he considers the tco generous handicapping of French horses In the bag Fnglish t aces. In the following article he points out apparent errors of the handieappers in recently announced weight assignments fcr coming races : I wonder whether English handieappers j really have the French calendars and current sporting papers for reference? It would | I almost seem not, for otherwise they could not possibly rank Sir Gallahad III. as seven pounds behind Pharos and Parth. They have done this, however, beyond all Bjnratlcn in the handicap fir the Kempton Jubilee, in which Fpinard is asked to give Pharos and Parth only sixteen pounds, as against the twenty-three pounds which he was asked to give Sir Gallahad III. at Lincoln. WEST IUDF.R OF HIS YEAH. There is no getting over this point, or the J tact that Sir Galahad III. was the best three-year-old miltr of his year in France, with ! the possible exception of Epinard. I say | | "possible." fcr there is no proof in the French ■ book that Fpinard can give Sir Gallahad III. j any/thing at all. They never met last year. and, though Epinard did all that was asked j of him with supreme ease. Sir Gallahad III. was not only a classic winner, but In all his races showed better speed than his opponents. j : He was only beaten when asked to ga fcr I | more than a mile. Our handieappers may : I have drawn an imaginary line through ! Parths neck defeat of Massine for the Prix dArc de Triomphe last autumn. Massine. ! which finished second to Parth, having beaten Sir Gallahad III. out of a place for the Prix j Lupin in the previous May, but the Prix Lupin was run over ten and one-half fur- i j longs, which is too far for Sir Gallahad III.. , and explains his defeat. j On the other hand, in Parths race there • was Kefalin, winner of the Grand Prix in ; ! 1922, and only just beaten for the Derby of I that year. He finished sixth to Parth. to | I which he was conceding twelve pounds — and. mind you, there were only necks between the first three. He is now placed three pounds lower than Parth and Pharos, and there : seems to be small show of reason in this. except to favor the Frenchman, for three-year-olds | in the autumn are frequently as 1 good as ever they become, and fifteen pounds I is a lot to wipe out for a by no means convincing defeat. I It should be added here that Parth. when he won in France, did so under exceptional disadvantage. He was delayed a day at Folkestone on account of the weather, and had a bad crossing. Xot only that, but the , railway service on the other side is so i:n-1 satisfactory that he was kept an inordinate , time in a horse box before reaching the 1 scene of action. That he should have won under such con-i ditions led many of us — myself included — to assume that the English three-year-olds must be better than the French, and this was a by no means unreasonable conclusion, but that particular form touched neither Epinard or Sir Gallahad III. at a mile. ___ mmm m m m m _ — j | I J ! | | ■ j j j : I | : I ! ! j i j , j • ; ! I | I : | 1 I I , , 1 I am quite sure that Epinard will never surprised that the handicapper should actually have given Verdict a one pound advantage over him. this being a much more stay the Kempton Jubilee course, and am suitable distance for her. Epinard failed to win the Cambridgeshire because seven furlongs is his true course. He was ridden exactly as one of the sort should be ridden, to get home on the switchback ideal of momentum, and he failed even so. to stay rifiht home. Future events will show whether I am right or wrong, but personally I have no doubt on the subject, and should have given him seven pounds better terms with Verdict at Kempton instead of one pound worse. PAKTH OT PHIirOSSKSfilM.. There is always the possibility that Parth is better than his running in England would suggest. He is a colt I do not like, or he sterns to have been made at twice and imperfectly connected in his middle piece. Still, he can go. though I dont think he can stay. He owed his position in the Derby to rtait-ing slowly while the others were racing themselves to a standstill, and it was for much the Sim*1 reason that he finished where he did in the Ieger. That is no reason, however, why he should not stay ten furlongs at Bpaom or Kempton. I wi uld always stand Pharos to beat him over that distance, but that is another story. Our handieappers have a line on Elinard right enough, but so long as they Jump to the conclusion that he is out by himself in Ft ante they will give races away to other French horses which may he equally good. I repeat that I cannot find, after diligent E arch in the French beck, that Epinard at one mile is any better at even weights than Sir Gallahad HI., let alone giving him twenty-three pounds. Then ceases the question of Joyeux l r;lle, a five-year-i Id son of Sans le Sou and La Stnibante. by Phoenix, her dam Iietra Mala, by Atlantic— Little Sister, by Hermit. Sans le Sou is by Sans Souci II. — Zingara. by Le Sancy. her dam the Other Eye. by tom- nion. Sans Souci II. was by Le Rol Soleil son of Heaume. by Hermit from Sancti- mony. by St. Serf and tracing to Arancaria, and he was a great race horse, winning the Grand Prix among other races. That was on April IS and lit- carried 1: 7 pounds, which was by far the highest weight. The race was a handicap. This weight was justified by the fact that as a three-year-old he bad won 4,100 in stakes and was placed in other good races. He was only just beaten for the French Two Thousand Guineas and Kefalin failed by a head only to win the Derby. Now why should a horse on the LIT pound handicap mark in France be dropped to 107 pounds in Kngland? This, be it romemb -red. is a five-year-old with classi." three-year ehl form and a fine performance to his credit last year. The fact of his having run only • m-e last year might justify an assumption that he went wrong and could not be trained, but that is negatived by the fact that he has been sent to England for Crawford to train. The handicapper was not spared the eonse- quences of his rashness in dealing with Sir Gallahad III. at Lincoln, and I see no reason to suppose that similar retribution will not follow on the handicapping of Kefalin and Joyeux Drille, both of which have been given a really amazing chance at Kempton. Personally I should have fancied Pharos for the Jubilee, but why on earth should he be asked to give three pounds to a Grand Prix winner a year older than himself, and fourteen pounds to a tive-year-old with a record such as Joyeux Drille lias ha his credit? The City and Suburban has not been spoiled in the same way. and here I should trust both Iharos and Verdi.t to tahe care j of F/rinard at the weights and over that distance. Gurzil, too. might worthily uphold the three-year-old record, and Putters well knows how to train a throe-year-old to win this race; but the Kempton Jubilee seems like being another gift to the French, for no reason except the extraordinary handicapping.
