view raw text
« » Here and There on the Turf Season in Full Swing. Improving the Breed. Record at Genesee Valley. 4 • With the New York turf devotees having their first taste of 1927 racing at the Belmont Terminal course of the United Hunts Racing Association this afternoon it is a big day for the sport. It means the beginning of a New York campaign that is a bit longer than that of last year, and longer than any of the years since the repeal of the Percy Gray law and the dark days that eventually resulted in two years, 1911 and 1912, without any racing other than that furnished by the amateur associa tions. Incidentally it was such associations as the United Hunts organization that furnished what little racing there was in the state for those two dark years, and the manner in which they carried on had much to do with the return of racing, until now it has been built up to an importance never before attained. Next Saturday Kentucky is to have its first racing this year, when the old Lexington course of the Kentucky Association will be thrown open. That date will see the 1927 racing in full swing, with the sport progressing in New York, Maryland, Ohio and Illinois, for Thursday will mark the opening of the meeting at the Aurora course in this state. Now indeed the long winter ildeness has come to an end and racing is back to roll merrily along until the closing days of November, when the winter tracks will beckon those who do not go into winter quarters to rest for what is to be offered the next year. Racing over the big Canadian courses does not begin until May 21, when the Ontario Jockey Club will conduct its first meeting of the year over its beautiful Woodbine Park course at Toronto, but by that time there will have been a completion of the big spring meetings in Maryland, with the opening of various others, until all will be in full swing. Efforts are being made at this time to give the turf of Ohio greater stability by the enactment of favorable laws, and should that be accomplished, together with what has already Iwn accomplished in Illinois, the turf will indeed have grown and prospered in this country, until it stands proudly at the head of all sjiorts, as it should. Whde it is generally known that the Breeding Bureau of The Jockey Club has done considerable for the improvement of the breed of horses, too many are prone to laugh at the idea of racing having behind it the improvement of the breed. Too often, those who do not know and do not care to take the trouble to find out, consider that this talk of racing improving the breed means nothing except a blind behind which racing may hide. Yet, from the beginning, racing has improved the breed, for it is by racing that the best thoroughbreds are determined and it is by racing that the best breeding line are evolved. That is all well enough as far as racing is concerned, but the contention is made that racing improves the breed right along the line apart | from the thoroughbred horse itself. That is j j why the thoroughbred is the most sought after sire by the Remount Association for the pro duetion of the best army horses. And all of this is more than simply theory, though unfortunately, in this country there has l»een nothing like the records kept, that should have been kept of the matings of the thoroughbred with general j urjM,"e or cold; I blooded mares. Mrs. Wadsworth of Genesee ; Y alley has come nearer to keeping a dependable record of such breeding than any one else and I | it is in Genesee alley that may be found more , j half bred and three quarter bred horses than anywhere else in the country. It is there that the breeding bureau of The Jockey Club has been better developed than anywhere else and it is there that greater care is taken in the matings, with a result that better foals are produced. Genesee Valley has long been the prize section, by reason of the close attention that has been devoted to breeding and with the records which have been kept all of the results are easily shown. It has been shown that with the spring sales which have already commenced, a Wisconsin buyer paid an average of 86 for eighteen head and a Pennsylvania buyer bought five for a total of ,125 and a Canadian paid ,000 for a three-year-old War Call gelding. During March farmer breeders in the valley sold ten yearlings, seven two-year-olds, four three-year-olds, one four-year-old and one six-year-old for a total of 1,575. These prices were only made possible for the reason that each individual was the progeny of a thoroughbred stallion. The same number of farm horses, without the thoroughbred strain could by no stretch of the imagination command any such prices. These are convincing and positive proofs of how the thoroughbred improves the strain. Racing improves the thoroughbred for the winning post is the only test, so that racing, after all, improves the breed. It would be well for I the scoffers to think this over. . «,
