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FOR LONG DISTANCE RACING1 S I Er jlish Turf Writer Reports Progress in Fight for Reform. « DBBtta of Hares at Worth While Distances To He Discussed I»y ESSjBkdi Jockey Club. • Auiir, writing I* "London Sporting I. iff." lias the following to say in connection with the agitation in that country for more distance races: As one who has advocated for many years the promotion of more long distance races, I am heartened to find th:it the authorities are St length becoming sympathetic in that direction. Sir John Rutherford, who introduced the subject at the recent meeting of the Jockey Club, was invited to bring it up again and may be depended upon to do so. but in the meantime it is for racing executives la anticipate any probable recommendations from the authorities and experiment on their own account I have no doubt as to the eventual success. 1 :gree that promoters of meetings have launched out more of late, but there is abundant room for further enterprise. It was claimed my one cleric of the course that longdistance handicaps attracted comparatively few runners, but the handicap horse suited to such events has to graduate through "maiden" and other races, and it is only by encouragement being given to him during such process that the finished article is to be produced in greater quantity. I.ONOKR HACKS MORF. POPULAR. An 1 I maintain that, although stayers be comparatively scarce, and for the reason that sufficient opportunities have not been afforded at what might be called the beginners stage, races at a mile and a half and upward with only seven or eight runners are far more attractive to the general public than five-furlong "squirts" with double the number of competitors. Even if the gate were a cure for all the ills formerly associated with starts for sprint races and it assuredly is not — the longstanding popularity of contests decided by something more than a flash of speed would in no wise be diminished. We see, year after year, the enclosures at Newmarket more thronged on Cesarewitch afternoon than when the Cambridgeshire is being run for, even though the latter invariably draws to the post a better class group of animals. Sprints are. of course, necessary. It is obvious that there must be races wherein horses of eertain breeds or characteristics shall have every chance of displaying their strong points. Some reach their best speed limit at five or six furlongs, just as, in the human species, one man specializes at a hundred yards or so. .simply because nature has not equipped him for being a celebrity at a mile. Another man finds two or five miles just as conveniently within his compass. Too frequently are these short scurries decided at the starters end. the results pleasing no one but the winning owners, or the Bupporters of the successful animals, and even the former run the risk of being misled as to the merits of the performances. Even though now aimed with more discretionary powers another belated reform— starters will continue to regard sprint races with more or less apprehension. They have, by the exercise of ordinary disciplinary measures, checked the one-time habit of poaching. yet. while a better understanding prevails among all who are concerned with the dispatch, there are difficulties connected with the starters endeavor to get a good line, and as a rule the shorter the race the greater the difficulty. In the middle distance contest the competitors are usually better behaved. The starts are accordingly more uniformly fair, and so the proportion of genuine tests is higher. I think it will be found, too, that the racing life of animals taking part in such races is longer and yields better results. Sourness in the thoroughbred is often begotten by the pulling back and the sawing about incidental to races in connection with which a quick beginning as a rule means more than half the battle. 1IKI.PS OF. V FLOP RIDF.RS. Then the advance of apprentice talent has been due to something more than aptitude at the gate. Promptness there is, I grant, part of the stock-in-trade of the successful jockey, but I think the boys who have now attained distinction have been helped thereto by riding in races which hae developed judgment of pace and sympathetic handling of their mounts. For that reason, no doubt, five-furlongs races for apprentices at Newmarket are tabooed. The shortest distance for such is seven furlongs, and I would make an occasional one longer than that, so as to give the lads a better chance of judging what horses other than their own are doing. Scattered as they arc, sometimes over three-parts the width of Newmarket course, they seem to me to have little opportunity of grasping the strength or tin- weakness of the opposition. 1 have argued aforetime, and still repeat that the best interests of the turf generally are to be served by increasing the number of races in which Um scale of weights is higher and of which the distances are longt r. The more long-distance races, and the greater the scan h for stayers among horses whose owners an- too early deceived into elepre-eiating them, and branding supposed "cowards," which are likely willing enough when given fair room iti which to show their true vocation. Sir John Rutherford will find that "where theres a will, theres a way," toward the goal he is aiming at.
