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Here and There on the Turf Epinards Glorious Defeat. Fame of Wise Counsellor. Sporting Spirit Everywhere. Close of Hawthorne Meeting. Epinard has been beaten in the first of the three International races that brought him to this country. It was Frederick A. Burtons Wise Counsellor that took the measure of the French champion at Belmont Park Monday, but Epinard was glorious in defeat. Before the end of the racing season it will probably be more evident that to be defeated by Wise Counsellor by a close margin is fame and Epinard did not have the best of racing luck Monday. It is not meant to take anything from the performance of Wise Counsellor. It is altogether probable that with equal racing luck the result would have been the same, but the invader must be given every benefit of the doubt in this, his initial race. In the first place, while he was perfectly trained by Eugene Leigh, there is no training that can equal the training that comes from actual racing. Wise Counsellor had the advantage of the training that comes through actual racing and that was a big advantage. It is safe to assume that this race will do Epinard a world of good and he may be depended upon to run an even better race when he is sent to the post for his mile engagement at Aqueduct. A race before, that engagement falls due would also be of great advantage in making him ready for the mile. What is of paramount importance is that Epinard is a worthy representative of the French turf and that he is in superb condition. There need be no excuse offered for his showing, for it wras brilliant indeed and the son of Badajoz and Epine Blanche is glorious in his defeat. And, while lauding Epinard, it is just as well to remember that he went down before a remarkable colt when Wise Counsellor took his measure. As a two-year-cld he was far and away the best colt racing in Kentucky and probably the best of the year. It was. indeed a misfortune that he should have gone amiss on the eve of the Preakness Stakes, for which he was being pointed in the spring. Both Mr. Burton and John Ward had visions of taking the big Pimlico race and then the Kentucky Derby. The colt had shown them enough to inspire such a hope. Then Wise Counsellor trained off and it was weeks before he was back into his racing condition. He is back now and it would seem that he is destined to stay back. Mr. Wertheimer, Eugene Leigh and Everett Haynes C2n at least have the satisfaction of knowing that it took about the best of our American three-year-old colts to beat Epinard. Whether or not Wise Counsellor is the master of Mr3. Vanderbilts Sarazen is still an open question. The unsexed son of High Time has been returned to the top of his form by Max Hirsch since, he like Wise Counsellor, was denied a try for the Kentucky Derby in the spring by reason of going amiss. The consummate ease with which Sarazen won the Manhattan Handicap from Cherry Pie, holder of the American record for a mile in a race, and Mad Play, winner of the Belmont Stakes, giving weight to both, leaves no doubt of his championship class. This great gelding will have his opportunity against Epinard at Laurel, where they are both engaged in the 5,000 Washington Handicap, at a mile and a quarter. No one in that great throng which witnessed the victory of Wise Counsellor and the defeat of Epinard will ever forget it. It was a tre- mendously big sporting event and it furnished a bright page in American turf history. Pierre Wertheimer took his defeat like the true sportsman he is, while Haynes and Leigh accepted the reverse without excuses. Frank Keogh, who rode the winner, took his share of the glory modestly, and he was the one to offer an excuse for Epinard and Haynes. Altogether there was not an incident in the big race that did not reflect no end of credit cn the sportsmanship of all most vitally concerned. While the attention of the whole turf world was directed to Belmont Park on Labor Day, it was likewise a big holiday at Hawthorne. It brought to a close the tremendously successful meeting of fifty-two days that began July 3. The big event of the afternoon was the Labor Day Handicap, which fell to the Audley Farms Stables good fiily Princess Doreen, and tho other five offerings formed an attractive setting for the feature. What was of greatest importance was the fact that the meeting was one that all through the heat of the summer never lost its appeal. It was a meeting that was successful beyond the fondest hopes of the men who financed the project and during the long meeting the racing was clean and of a variety worthy of the success that was achieved. The return of racing to Chicago is no longer in tho experimental stage. Racing is back and it is back to stay. It will stay just as long as the sport is in the hands of those who see to it that it brings no reproach. It has been demonstrated that clean racing is more than welcome. It is easy enough to keep the sport clean and that is what Hawthorne has done in the big work of revival. Already plans have been laid for a long meeting next year and year after year the turf will come to a firmer and more lasting footing in Illinois. There is to be another meeting begun at Aurora next Saturday and it will continue for twenty-five days. With so many horses already on the ground from Hawthorne this meeting will have an advantage never enjoyed before and, with the example that has been set at Hawthorne, there is no reason why this racing should not succeed. The racing at Aurora will conflict with La-tonia, which opens September 13, but there are horses enough and to spare for both tracks to have a full measure of success. Latonia will naturally attract the better class of thoroughbreds by reason of the rich stake races that are offered, but Aurora has a real place to fill and under able direction it can become an important cog in the whole turf scheme. It takes a he-man to play polo. No weakling was ever known to ride across country again after a tumble. The Prince of Wales plays polo and he has had many a tumble riding over country. He loves a good horce. Now, is it any wonder that the consensus of opinion of the greatest crowd that ever assembled at Belmont Park, acclaimed him a regular fellow? a
