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Here and There on the Turf Wise Counsellors Return. Another Butler Victory. Maryland Season Ends. Shortage of Jockeys. The victory of Wise Counsellor in the Jen nings Handicap at Pimlio Monday demon strated that the sen of Mentor and Rustle is still one of the most formidable sprinters in the country. The winner of the First Inter national Special of last fall is a popular horse with the public and his impressive return to racing is welcome. In the Jenning3 Handicap Wise Counsellor was conceding plenty of weight to hi? opponents. He was giving Shuffle Along eight pounds and the Bostwick horse is a high-class sprinter himself. In spite of his high standing among the short distance racers Wise Counsellor has been more cr less of a disappointment since his two-year old days. Last year he went wrong while preparing for the Kentucky Derby at a time when he shared favoritism with Sarazen and St. James. Then when he did return to the races he proved himself incapabl; of main taining his rare speed beyond three quarters against high-class opponents. When Wise Counsellor ran the fastest mile ever shown in Kentucky by a two year old to win the Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs in the fall of 1923 there wa- everything indicating that the colt would develop into a stayer, but his later career is just another evidence that two year old form must in a measure be discounted as an indica tion of a horses future possibilities. James Butlers colors were carried to an other stake race victory at Jamaica Tuenday when Turf Ijght won the Rosedale Stakes, for two year old fillies. On M nday Pique, a three year old, beat Wild Aster and Worthmore in the Rainbow Handicap, at three-quarters. Stings victory in the Excelsior Handicap Sat urday brought the Butler stable into the light of public attention and Piques performance on Monday, together with Turf Lights more re c?nt win. serves to emphasize the fact that the master of East View is likely to be a much more important figure in metropolitan racing this year than usual. The horses which trainer Johnson is training for the owner of the Empire City track did l.ule enough last year to keep the handicapper from asking too much of them and they will have an advantage in the weights in handi caps for some time, no doubt. But they are evidently trained to the minute and even with out such advantage might ba able to hold their own. The Maryland spring racing ends today with the clos" of the Pimlico meeting of the Maryland Jockey Club. The campaign has been a highly successful one. both from the standpoint of sport and from that of popularity. The three meetings have all attracted even better patronage than is usual in the spring, and some of the best horses in the country have been brought into competition at the Maryland courses. Maryland opens the regular northern racing each year and it is there that the turf enthusiast obtains his first taste of spring sport, every twelve months after the long winter has passed into history. This is an important function for any raring center and the trend of the sport in Maryland each spring usually serves as a fairly safe barometer to the summer racing. Spring racing in Maryland this year indicates that the summer racing will be excellent, with an abundance of good horses in the handicap division and an evenly matched array in the three year old ranks. It indicates also that His turf is enjoying an exceptional degree of popularity. The racing in the metropolitan district should be improved sharply with the close of Pim lico. The Jamaica meeting has been handi capped by a shortage of good class horses and also by a dearth of capable riders because of the conflict with Maryland, but both of these handicaps should be eliminated with he completion of the racing in that state. Clarence Kummer and Laverne Fator have been the most active and most capable of the jockeys at Jamaica thus far. Earl Sande has come back with much of his old skill and as great a degree of courage as ever, but he is still weak as a result of his long illness. He can handle one or two mounts a day as ably as he ever could, but when he tries to ride in every race he finds, apparent ly, that his reserve btrcngth is hardly great enough to meet the demands that he must make upon it. The youngsters now riding are for the most part unable to hold their own with skillful riders like Sande, Fator and Kummer. They try, but their incompetence is so obvious as to be almost ludicrous at times. Just what is to be done to replenish the «up[4y tjf capable xideta it- gniutrthing cl a. problem. It is not impossible of solution, but it does appear to be difficult and those most i directly interested in the effects of the jockey-famine do not seem to be sufficiently concerned to devote any serious thought to the question. Yet horses which under capable jockeyship could be earning their way are beaten every day because of incompetent rides. It is a short sighted policy on the part of owner or trainer to ignore such a problem when it obviously means the difference between financial success and financial failure in many stables. Under present conditions a return to old methods of training jockeys which prevailed in the days of "Father Bill" Dalys jockey school is out of the question. The youngsters who enter the riding profession nowadays would not stand for the treatment accorded the "stu dents" in the Daly school. Nor would any present day trainer go to the trouble of schooling the youngsters in the rudiments of the riding art aa did "Father Bill" When a really high-class rider develops now ■days his success is usually due to natural ability rather than to any training which he has been given. In other words, if a boy is a natural horseman, he may become a successful jockey, but if he is not, he is not likely to learn enough about horsemanship to become even a passable performer. It is possible, or it was in the old days, to make a fairly capable rider out of almost any boy that possessed the will to learn. But now such a boy has no means of acquiring the really necessary instruction in the fundamentals of riding that was pounded into the youngsters in the "Daly era." If he is lucky, he will do the right things instinctively, but if he is not, he will learn eerything in the wrong way and will develop into a thoroughly incompetent rider, who will still be able to make a living by fees for losing mounts. The trainer who sees an incompetent rider throwing away a race for which he has carefully prepared a horse explodes into loud denunciations of the boy. What he should do, if he is capable of doing so, is to tell the boy bow the horse should have Deen ridden and to point out the mistakes that he made. Then, the youngster nughl urinrove.
