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Here and There on the Turf More on Placing Horses. Some Handicap Winners. Thunderclap Gomes Back. Return of Andacions. This matter of shooting too high with 1 horses is one that is decidedly interesting. The records bear out the futility of trying to make, at best a useful horse, beat a top-class handicap performer. The useful horse is 8 only useful when placed where he belongs. It t is easily possible for a horse to begin modestly. - Many of the champions have first appeared in j selling races and gradually worked into the I top class. It is altogether a different matter to start a horse at the top. Send him after the ! best there are and see him gradually dwindle to the cheap class. Of course the plater division is frequently recruited from the handicap division. Horses 5 have gone back after a brilliant campaign. " But there is always the memory of a start I in a Suburbr.Ti, a Metropolitan, a Brooklyn or . other big handicap that is going to hurt this • plater tremendously. It establishes a fictitious j value and when the horse is entered at a price that gives him a winning chance one stands in prospect of losing the horse. The claiming races have a real place in the racing scheme. They offer a field of endeavor for horses that do not measure up to the handicap division and they are legion. When i these races are safeguarded, as they are under . the existing rules, they are both entertaining ; and profitable. But the horse that establishes ■ a false value by being raced against horses I that are above his class will find even the claiming races a decidedly hard field of endeavor. There k a fine skill in the placing of horses. The trainer who can properly class his horses ! and never ask them to do more than that for which their class fits them, is the successful trainer. Races are framed that will take care of almost every class. Cheap ones I do not belong in handicaps and the horse that must have a concession of from twenty or thirty pounds from the top of the handicap in order to have a winning chance, is better off if he does not win. When he does win it is at the cost of a supreme effort and he cannot take up the penalty that the victory will automatically impose. A glance through the handicaps will bear out this contention. Taking the handicaps at a mile, or greater distances, it is surprising how few times they have been won by a lightly weighted horse, with the exception of three-year-olds winners, and on the scale their weight could not be considered as being light. Of course, in the sprinting races there is not the same demand on the horse, but as a matter of fact, it is probable the same conditions would be found to prevail among them. The Suburban Handicap, at a mile and a quarter, was won by Whisk Broom II. under 139 pounds and Grey Lag carried 135 pounds to victory. While looking through the list there are found many other winners that took up weight in excess of 120 pounds, while there are surprisingly few that won with less than 110 pounds in the saddle. i Grey Lag won the Saratoga Handicap, at a mile and a quarter, under 130 pounds, while i Sir Barton and Roamer each won the same race under 129 pounds, while in another case ; Roamer won under 128 pounds and Olambala l also carried 128 pounds to victory. In this race, since its first running in 1901, the only ] i i ; l ] winners to carry less than 111 pounds were the three-year-olds Francesco and Affliction. This same Grey Lag was the winner of the Metropolitan Handicap under 133 pounds. Mad Hatter won with both 129 and 127 pounds and Jack Atkin carried 128 pounds to victory, while there were many others whose weight was greater than 120 pounds and few indeed were the lightly weighted winners. When Race King, a four year old, ran a dead heat with the three year-old Sysonby he carried 97 pounds and Mr. Keenes champion took up 107 pounds, which meant that Sysonby was giving away a year and ten pounds. The Brooklyn Handicap has seen 135 pounds carried to victory when Exterminator was its winner. Whisk Broom II. and Fitz Herbert each won under 130 pounds and Cudgel won under 129, while many and many another was first home under a greater weight than 120 pounds. It is found this same way in the Bowie Handicap, at a mile and a half; the Brighton Handicap of a mile and a quarter, no longer run; the Brookdale, the Camden, the Cham-plain, Clark, Excelsior, Jerome, Empire City, the Huron and various other of the big handicaps over a considerable distance of ground. The winners have not been coming from the lightly weighted division. They have frequently started against the top notchers, but it has usually been merely a heart breaking chase. There was real interest in the return of Thunderclap to winning form at Belmont Park Friday. ITiis good old son of Vulcain and the Star Shoot mare Bandana has a world of speed. Time after time he has raced brilliantly and displayed truly amazing courage. Until his victory in the six and a half furlongs Friday, Thunderclap has started three times at the meeting and, while on each occasion he raced honestly, he just missed that compelling rush through the stretch that has so often carried him to victory. Sande rode him perfectly in the sprint and when he was called on at the head of the stretch he was the Thunderclap of old. His victory was a1 tremendously popular one, for a race track crowd is wonderfully loyal to an honest and game horse. While Thunderclap was staging his return at Belmont Park another old favorite of both New York and Kentucky racing was coming-back when Mrs. Louise Viaus Audacious equaled the Latonia track record of 1:41% for a mile and seventy yards, winning the Walton Purse from the good mare Startle. la two previous starts this year Audacious wan beaten by first Goshawk and then Moonraker. but the fast running son of Star Shoot and Bold Girl is back to form now and he has a fashion of hclding his form. This same Audacious holds the American record for six and a half furlongs. This record is l-.YlVz and was made at Belmont Park on., September 4, 1920.
