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Here and There on the Turf Fields at Belmont. Team Work Is Needed. Plea for Early Entries. Scratch Rule Might Help. With a final taste of almost summer weather thereto every hope now that winter is through fitting in the lap of spring and racing will be blessed with fair skies and the attendant fast track condition. Belmont Park has been handicapped in its sport year after year by the inability to obtain fields of a suitable size for good contests and some times the excuse has been one of weather. Another excuse of some of the trainers that the course itself is so bard that it tends to cripple horses, but whatever the reason the entries, as a general proposition, are lighter at the course of the Westchester Racing Association than at any of the other New York tracks. The charge of the course being far too hard on its surface may have some foundation, but the fact remains that a greater number of horses are trained over Belmont Park than any other of the New York training grounds. In fact, a count would probably show a far greater number at the big Nassau County track than at all of the others put together. Of course, the stabling facilities at Belmont Park are greater and better than at any other course and that accounts for some of the difference, but if the track was one with a surface that tended to break horses down it does Dot seem possible that it would be chosen as a training ground merely because of its superior stabling facilities. Adequate and comfortable stables are always much to be desired, but horses have never been known to win races in stables and if the surface at Belmont Park is so hard as to keep the horses in the stabl??, then it is no good ground over which to train. Many of the race courses of lesser importance than Belmont Park grant stable room first to trainers who have horses ready to run and trainers who have made engagements for their horses and, when they are all taken care of, the others may find accommodation. There is ampl? room at Belmont Park to i comfortably take care of horses enough for | two race meetings of almost any length, yet there are stables with horses ready to run that] have had trouble in finding stabling, while others are occupying stalls with horses that are not raced, and even yearlings are taking some of the room. A visit to the track any morning will give an illuminating idea of the number of fit horses there are on hand, but in the afternoon it frequently happens that the programs would suggest an alarming shortage. The cheap races all fill abundantly, but this applies to almost any track, while the contests for the better! horses too often do not attract horsss enough ! to furnish an entertaining spectacle. Then, at the same course, too often, the ■ fcratch board is well nigh covered with the ! names of horses that have been withdrawn. Irirday the second race, with twenty entered, brought ten withdrawals, while in the fifth, with twenty-three named through the entry box, there were fourteen that failed to put j in an appearance. Of course, that left -field i of nine, which is ample for any race, but why are the horses entered just to be scratched ? The same day the two races that promised | most only saw four runners at post time. From time to time there have been efforts , to better these conditions at Belmont Park, and Major Belmont has frequent conferences with the trainers in an effort to obtain better cooperation. These have come to little and the trainers continue to suit themselves when it comes to furnishing the entertainment. There should be better team work between the associations and the trainers. It would bs possible to pass a scratch rule that would do away with much of the wholesale withdrawal of horses that have been named, but it would be infinitely better if the trainers, without any such rule, would do their part in entering and running their horses. The rules in New York are exceedingly lenient in regard to both entering and scratching and the trainers should show more appreciation of this fact. At almost every other track the time for closing the entries is 10 oclock in the forenoon and the scratch time is early in the forenoon of the day of the race. The adoption of such a rule in New York ought to d- great good in the faking of programs and there are various excellent reasons for this rule. In the first place in the event a race should not fill, as is frequently the case, there is ample time to fill a substitute. Then in the matter of publicity the early closing of entries would be of vast benefit to the racing associations. The wider the distribution of the published entries the wider the publicity for the track, for there is no advertising of greater value than published entries. It surely would not be much of a hardship on the trainers to require them to make their entries by 10 oclock on the day before the running. They have to do so when they race their horses elsewhere, and a trainer certainly knows at 10 oclock in the morning what horses he intends to race on the following day, just as well as he does at 2 oclock. As for the convenience, it ought to suit the trainers just as well as the later hour, for by 10 oclock the training for the day has been completed and the trainers have to be on hand for the train ing. It all returns to the crying need for better team work.
