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Here and There on the Turf Belmonts Big Opening. Value of Metropolitan. Prizes for Coney Island. Meaningless Jockey List. ■ .______ Time was when Friday was considered an off day on the turf. But there are none of the days off days in the greatest of all sports in these bountiful days of racing. That magnificent crowd that journeyed down to beautiful Belmont Park for the opening on Friday testi fied convincingly that racing knows no off days. There was a like testimony at the open ing of the short meeting of the Maryland Jockey Club at Pimlico when the Dixie Handicap and the Preakness Stakes were both run on Friday. Like Belmsnt Park, those were red letter days in the Pimlico meeting and the tremendous attendance told eloquently of the grip the turf has on the public. The opening of the meeting of the West Chester Racing Association must have been gratifying to Joseph E. Widener and the old racing organization. There had been a long and painstaking prep aration for the big event and with the bright summer sunshine conditions could not have been better for the beginning of the twenty days race meeting that is so rich in its promise of great turf battles. Much has been Baid and written of the beauties of Belmont Park in its new dress, but all has not been told and it is impossible to obtain a comprehensive idea of the beauty of the racing ground without a visit. It is indeed a show place of all race courses and it is a beauty that will grow and go on to still greater magnificence when all the shrubbery and the other embellishments of nature have reached full maturity. Racing in New York state has be?n through bitter times of lean years and nowhere that horses have raced has there been such meager returns to the associations, but the Westchester Racing Association has gone to a tremendous expense to make Belmont Park what it is today and cost has at no time been considered. Racing in the State of New York is a sport first, last and all the time, and the prodigal expenditure of money for the creature com forts of patrons and the beautifying of the big Nassau County racing ground convinces that never will any commercial idea mar the racing over the greatest of all racing grounds. It was with a fine courage that the West Chester Racing Association brought its racing ground to its present splendor and it will take many a prosperous year to pay for what has been expended. There will ever be a glamor to the Metropoli tan Handicap that can never be measured by its value. To have won a Metropolitan Handi cap is a proud achievement for any thorough bred and for any turfman. Coming as it does early in the racing year, it always affords really the first convincing demonstration of the handicap division. At this time there are r.ch handicaps run earlier and handicaps that attract the best in training, but there is no danger of the Metropolitan Handicap ever los ing its proud place and its prestige. The Metropolian has too many traditions ever to fail of being one of the gTeat American races and from the time Tn.-tan was its winner at old M rris Park in 1891 to the present day it has never failed in its importance. On through the roster of its winners during the thirty four years since it was established, the Metropolitan has never been won by a bad horse, while the name of many a champion is registered. Time and again the Metropolitan has aff rded a dependable line on the Brooklyn and the Suburban Handicaps, two of the other famous New York handicaps, and it will ever continue to furnish such a line. Not that a Metropolitan winner has triumphed often in the other two big handicaps, but the mile of the Metropolitan Handicap gives a decided line on the handicap division. Whisk Broom II. was the one horse to win all three handicaps in 1913. King James won a Metropolitan and a Brooklyn the same year and there have been other repeaters, but the three races have a close relaticnthip to one another and that adds greatly to the importance of each. Through all the vicissitudes of racing in New York the Metropolitan Handicap has been carried on. the only lapses being in 1895, 1911 and 1912, when there was no racing. And its first decision at Belmont Park, in 1915. was remarkable for the fact that it resulted in a dead heat between the mighty Sysonby, mak ing his first start as a three year old, and Race King, a four year old that had been sea-Boned before going to the post. Not counting the Sysonby dead heat, other three year old ■Ainiiors of the Metropolitan have been Voter, in 1897; Bowling Brook, in 1898, Ftligrane, I in 1899; Arsenal, in 1902; Trompe la Mort, in 1918; Wildair, in 1920, and Laurano. last year. It is a strong cull that the Exhibitors and Breeders Association will make for the best horses when its meeting is opened July 6. To many this cumbersome nsme means nothing, but it is the cognomen of th; association that is to conduct a fifty eight days meeting at the Coney Island course, close to Cincinnati. This newest of the many Ohio race courses has an attractive progTam for its initial meet ing and the liberality of the stake offerings is calculated to give the racing importance from i the opening of the meeting. The fact that the meeting follows after Latonia, the Kentucky; Jockey Club cours? that is really a Cincinnati track, though in Kentucky, assures the at I tendance of many of the horses that have raced there, and then with the big values there comes additional inducement. The big attraction will be the Cincinnati Derby. This is a mile and a quarter, to which j 5,000 is to be added and there is a second [ race exclushely for the three-year olds with I i ,000 added over a mile and seventy yards , distancv Two other stakes have an added money value of ,500 each, to another ,000 is added, while there are also seven others with ,000 added each. This is indeed a liberal money distribution for a new racing organization, but Cincinnati has long been a staunch racing cojumumty and i I j [ I i , it is safe to predict that the Coney Island meeting will meet with the success that this liberality deserves. The list of thirty leading jockeys at this time of the year is something of a joke for the reason that the real skilled jockeys have not been riding long enough to find a place in the list. It is a list that tells prin-I cipally of successes at the winter racing points and for that reason such skilled riders as Earle Sande, L. Poney1 McAtee and Clarence Kum-mer are some of those that do not appear, yet these three surely have something on all cf those who have earned a place among the first thirty. Trainers will commend the plan at Belmont Park looking to a safe cushion on the big course, rather than a surface looking for the breaking of speed records. Mr. Widener is » practical horseman and he has acted wisely in seeing to it that there should be cushion enough to insure the comfort of the galloping horses. When records are mado at the expense of breaking horses down it is time that records be forgotten, as in fact they should be at all times. The record means r»r»ininy_ the preservation of the haua means everything.
