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Here and There on the Turf Saratoga Season Over. Guaranteed Stake Evil. Success in Chicago. Epinards First Engagement. Another Saratoga meeting has passed into history and even the prospect of seeing Epi-nard in the first of his three races at Belmont Park Monday only partly assuages regret that August has slipped by. It has besn a tremendously successful meeting for the Saratoga Association and, while the promised solution of some of the problems of where the champions rest in the various age divisions is still in the air, it "has furnished great racing. The attendance has been better than ever before and, while from time to time there las been the handicap of a slow track by reason of frequent rains, it lias been altogether a delightful holiday on the most beautiful of all the American courses. And it has been a busy month with golfing over the McGregor links in the early morning, racing in the afternoon and the yearling sales at night. That was the daily round and it has bronzed and hardened many a New Yorker who has journeyed back to the big city; a tremendous winner, even though he could not locate the winners at the race course. There is only one Saratoga and to miss a season of racing there is to miss what is best and most entertaining of what the American turf has to offer. The Saratoga Association is to bz commended for moving up the time for the closing of entries to 10 oclock. Horsemen fell into that rule readily and there is really no good reason why the same rub should not be adopted at the Long Island and other New York tracks. It was also commendable that any effort should be made to print the names of the jockeys on the program. This was abortive, but it was not the fault of the association. Every effort was made to have ths trainers name ,their riders at the time of entry, but with no rule carrying a penalty clause for a failure to do so, there was an utter lack of co-operation among the trainers. In another department the trainers were careless and showed scant respect for the rules of racing. This was in the matter of weights to be carried. There were altogether too many mistakes made in the weight to be carried and day after day it became necessary to make corrections after the program had been printed As a general proposition this brought criticism of the office of the racing secretary, but the blame properly belongs with the trainers. They are responsible for the weight that should be carried and they made the mistakes. After telling of the delights of racing in Saratoga, it is hardly becoming to find fault with the same sport, but there are several reforms that are due even with the delightful sport. One of these is the abolition of the guaranteed stakes. The Saratoga Association has long since reached a prosperity that offers no excuse for the continuation of the guaranteed stake. When racing was struggling, back in the dark days of 1911 and 1912, when the New York tracks were closed, there was a reason for the guaranteed stake race, but racing has been prospering long enough since that time to warrant the abolition of such races. Most of the guaranteed stakes have either run over the amount guaranteed, or nave reached within a few paltry dollars of that amount. They are races that, while high-sounding, cost the Association nothing. The horsemen are racing for their own money and the guaranteed stake, as it has been offered at Saratoga, amounts almost to a sweepstakes of no expense to the Association. This is not becoming when the prosperity of the meeting is taken into consideration and it would be well if such a race as the Hopeful Stakes of S50,000 guaranteed was changed to 10,000 or even 5,000 added. It would not look as big on paper, but it wouid dc more popular with the horsemen and would mean a substantial .sum to race for, .rather than to battle for a stake that was made up by the horsemen themselves. There is no generosity in guaranteed stakes, except the generosity of the horsemen who enter in such stakes. They are antiquated and should be abolished. With the closing of the Saratoga meeting there also draws to a close the long meeting of the Chicago Business Mens Racing Association at Chicago. With the Labor Day racing at the Chicago course its meeting will be: brought to a conclusion, and, like Saratoga, it has been tremendously successful. Of course,! success is expected at Saratoga, with its long-1 established clientele, but to have fifty-two days of racing in midsummer at Chicago appeared j at first just a bit too much. But there never has been a lack of interest through that long meeting, and Hawthorne has firmly established the sport. Years ago, before the quarrels between John Condon and Edward Corrigan, there was no more successful racing point in the country than Chicago. Then came the bickerings and finally the threat of persecution that banished the thoroughbreds. Several attempts at a revival died aborning, but now, with intelligent management and the conducting of clean, interesting racing, "the turf has obtained a new foothold that will mean much to it. Just so long as Chicago racing is conducted along the lines that were carried out at Hawthorne, there can be no offense, and it is a sure thing that the sport will continue and thrive. There is always the existing danger everywhere that racing may fall into ths hands of the unscrupulous, who -will bring it into disrepute, but that danger is known and appreciated by sportsmen, and there need be no fear that they will ever be reproached with doing aught to bring reproach to the grandest of all the sports. As the day approaches for tie three-quarters dash that is to introduce Pierre "Wertheimers great colt, Epinard, to an American racing crowd, the interest becomes intense. The invader has progressed beyond all expectations for his Labor Day engagement, and those who have watched that progress admit that the fleetest of our sprinters will have a big contract in beading the chestnut whirlwind. But even should Epinard come through the three-quarters with flying colors, it still leaves the mile at Aqueduct and the mile and a quarter at Latonia. No matter what the result of the mere speed test, there will be no weakening of the candidates for the other two races. The invader will have to battle right through all three, and when they are all over he still has. a couple of engagements at Laurel in October that ought to round out his visit profitably. Mr. Wertheimer will be on hand to sea his great four-year-old race, and the coming of this distinguished sportsman lends- much additional interest. The Prince of Wales, himself a sterling sportsman and horseman, will be.1 another of the distinguished visitors, and, altogether, Labor Day should be one day of racing that will be one of the brightest .pages ir American turf history. . , .
