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Here and There on the Turf Whitneys Derby Hand Failure of Great Hopes Many Are Eliminated High Class Is Lacking While there are a greater number of ofthe the best twoyearolds of 1926 brought up to the Kentucky Derby of this year the conviction is forced that if they prove the best threeyearolds of this year there will be a woeful lack of good class horses in the big features Early in the spring the prospect of such sterling horses as Scapa Flow Walter M Jef fords Futurity winner of last year and Joseph E Wideners Osmand meeting in the Kentucky Derby gave it unusual im ¬ portance Both of these ranked so highly as twoyearolds that the Derby promised to have a chance to determine the threeyearold champion as early as May MayTo To many good judges Scapa Flow seemed the logical twoyearold cham ¬ pion of last year as the winner of the Belmont Park Futurity is so frequently hailed Then there were other excellent judges that rated Osmand higher Be ¬ ing a gelding he was ineligible to the Futurity but his brilliant racing at Sara ¬ toga Springs was enough to give him high rank among the twoyearolds twoyearoldsThere There was Rip Rap which rounded out his year so well in Maryland there was William DuPonts Fair Star winner of the Pimlico Futurity and the Salina Stakes at Laurel A G Westons Jopa gan Walter J Salmons Black Panther and Whiskery Bostonian and Pandara of the Harry Payne Whitney string stringThey They have all come back but with the exception of the Whitney pair Whiskery and Bostonian none of them seems to measure up to real Derby class classThe The renewal of Saturday may be one of the most interesting in many a year but the speed and stamina of the horses that appeared so excellent a month ago is not apparent now and the winner will seemingly be in no sense a remark ¬ able threeyearold Bostonian and Whiskery are the only ones of the eligibles that have publicly accomplished anything of note in prep ¬ aration for the Kentucky Derby That was accomplished at Pimlico on Monday when Bostonian was the winner and Whiskery was third in the Preakness Stakes after having raced Scapa Flow into defeated obscurity obscurityBut But the going at Churchill Downs is vastly different from that of Pimlico Should the track be fast on Saturday it may make a marked difference in the form of some of the candidates for the Kentucky Derby DerbyBut But of course it must be remembered that in other years the Derby has on almost every occasion developed entirely different form from that of the earlier race raceAs As for those that were fitted at Churchill Downs little more can be hoped for than from the beaten horses in the Preakness Stakes StakesOsmand Osmand by his victory of Wednesday did not add much to his reputation for he was tiring badly at the end of a mile and a sixteenth and it was only the supreme skill of Sande that landed him the winner And it must be admitted that merely to nose out Jock purely a sprinter himself was not much of an accqmpiishmenC Back of these two and rapidly wearing them down came Fred Jr the S W Grant candidate and the running would indicate that he holds them both safe at a mile and a quarter But to hold two such sprinters safe is not enough to make Fred Jr stand out with any degree of prominence as a Derby colt That he is a better stayer admits of no argument but it was not enough to put him in the same class with Whiskery or Bostonian Thus analyzing the chances of all the candidates it would appear that Ken ¬ tucky has scant chance to keep the honors at home unless one of the Brad ¬ ley nominees develops new form for which there is no good reason to hope hopeRip Rip Rap may possibly prove trouble ¬ some but he is another easterner and probably never before has the East had a like chance to fill all three positions at the end with three colts that this time do not in any sense measure up to the champions of other years yearsThen Then it must be remembered that al ¬ most invariably the Preakness Stakes contenders have been well beaten in the Kentucky Derby Sir Barton was the only colt to win both and that year his Derby engagement came first and at that time there was not the same difference in the going at Churchill Downs and that at Pimlico The course of the Maryland Jockey Club is much slower than that at I Churchill Downs and that is an excel ¬ lent excuse offered for Edward R Brad leys Buddy Bauer in the Preakness Stakes This colt had been trained in Kentucky and he was utterly unable to show anything at Pimlico PimlicoOf Of course as a general rule the horse that is trained over a slow track with plenty of cushion has a better chance in moving to a faster track than the horse that moves from a fast track to a slow one but the difference in footing counts for much and it is demonstrated year after year in these two great stake races racesBut But without this taken into considera ¬ tion the Whitney pair stand out over the other candidates candidatesScapa Scapa Flow was seemingly eliminated in the Preakness Stakes if that race is any index of Derby possibilities and in fact there was not one back of Whis ¬ kery that showed enough to measure up to the Derby standard standardBlack Black Panther is one that may be de ¬ pended upon to show to much better ad ¬ vantage at Churchill Downs but he will not have Maiben in the saddle and that will be to his disadvantage Another fault that can be found with Black Pan ¬ ther is his inability to handle his weight successfully He is a colt of fine speed and true as steel but he is unfor ¬ tunately not of a weightcarrying con ¬ formation and a bit light to take the scale requirement and race with the best That is purely a matter of his size and conformation and has nothing to do with either his speed or his sameness samenessIt It is pleasing to notethat the Illinois racing bill continues its favorable prog ¬ ress This is known as the Lager Bill and it has just been reported favorably by the license committee of the Senate to which it was referred after having passed the lower house by a comfortable majority majorityTh Th full text of the Lager Bill was pub ¬ lished in a recent issue of Daily Racing Form Briefly it provides for the licens ¬ ing of race courses the payment of a daily tax and the operation of the mutuel system of wagering under restrictions that are set forth forthFrom From its introduction the measure has never had its progress halted and it is so eminently fair in all of its provisions that from the beginning high hopes have been entertained for its passage Clarence Kummer fell afoul of the Pimlico stewards at an unfortunate time when he was suspended on Tuesday for the remainder of the meeting of the Maryland Jockey Club This punishment probably in every sense a just infliction is particularly severe at this time for Kummer was slated to ride Whiskery for Harry Payne Whitney in the Derby He had ridden the colt in the Preakness Stakes and was engaged for the compan ¬ ion great race raceAnd And while Kummer himself receives a double punishment in being denied the opportunity to ride in the Derby it is a bit of a punishment to Mr Whitney for it made necessary the engagement of an ¬ other rider for the son of Whisk Broom II Kummer is a jockey of long ex ¬ perience and he enjoyed the advantage ride in the Preakness Stakes
