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s g Here and There on the Turf Crusader and the Brooklyn. Evils of Scratching. Ordinary Three-Year-Olds. Racing for California. ; S There was some disappointment that Samuel D. Riddle did not start his champion Crusader in the Queens County Handicap at Aqueduct on Monday, but the handsome chestnut will race in the Brooklyn Handicap on Saturday, unless there is a change in the present stable plans. Mr. Riddle has complained of the weight that has been assigned the son of Man o War and Star Fancy by Mr. Vos-burgh, but, as a matter of fact, there does not seem to be any just cause for complaint after the race run by him in the Suburban Handicap. It is open to argument if Man o War himself ever ran a better race in his brilliant career. By this it is not intimated that Crusader is as good a horse as his daddy, but that one particular race of Crusader may have been a better race than Man o War was ever called upon to run. That Crusader is coming up to the Brooklyn Handicap in great condition was made evident before the races on Monday, when he simply cantered a mile and an eighth in 1:54 and was eased up the full mile and a quarter in 2:10. He went along under restraint all the way, and it was a wonderfully impressive move. Crusader is handicapped at 132 pounds in the Brooklyn Handicap, which is only six pounds over the scale and only five pounds more than he carried so easily in the Suburban Handicap, which was at a mile and a quarter. In that race Chance Play took up 125 pounds, while for the Brooklyn Handicap Chance Play was only asked to carry 121 pounds. Thus Chance Play has a nine-pound better arrangement, as far as Crusader is concerned, in the race of next Saturday. That Crusader gave him at least a fifteen-pound beating in that race no one will deny. Chance Play had his chance to redeem himself in the running of the Queens County Handicap and he was beaten. He ran a good race and a better one than he ran in the Suburban Handicap, but he was beaten by Light Carbine. This colt had never shown that he belonged in the first flight and, as the race was run, it appeared that Crusader could have readily carried 135 pounds to victory. As a matter of fact the real hero of the Queens County Handicap was Mars. It was the first appearance of Mr. Jeffords good colt since his victory in the Dixie Handicap at Pimlico on May 2 and, had the Queens County Handicap been as much as a mile and a sixteenth instead of a mile, Mars would surely have been the winner. This same Mars, on that showing, is better fitted to question the championship of Crusader than any other horse in training. . From time to time there have been complaints of the added starter evil at the New York tracks, but Daily Racing Form has always contended that the scratch evil is infinitely worse than the adding of starters. It is only possible to add starters in a stake race, but there is little or no control of the scratching. Aside from the fact that adding of starters cheats the handicappers of the opportunity to properly study the chances of all the starters before the running of the race, there is no evil in the practice. Of course that is rather serious, but as a matter of fact, an added starter is an added attraction, while the scratching frequently robs the racing program of a promise that may have brought many to the grounds. There was an instance of the evil of the lack of- proper control of the scratching at Belmont Park one afternoon when an overnight race resulted in a walkover. The first race of the Aqueduct meeting on Monday was all but ruined by scratching. Eleven had been carded to go to the post end eight of these were scratched, leaving only Kentucky II., Ramoneur and Shuffle Along to start. And of these scratched, there were Black Maria, Pompey, Happy Argo, In-grid, Cockney, Candy May, Clearance and Laughing Lady. Of these, at least the three first named in this list, were of a class to promise a great contest and their withdrawal was little short of cheating the crowd out of what had been promised in published entries. It is in this fashion that the lack of control in scratching works a greater wrong on the racing public than is suffered by the occasional adding of a starter in a stake race, which, as a matter of fact, frequently adds to its interest. Edward R. Bradley, as shrewd a student of the thoroughbred as can be found, was a bit disappointed in the showing of his Buddy Bauer in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, but at that he has no exalted opinion of the son of North Star III. He only rated him as a "nice colt" before the race, and he has a poor opinion of the entire three-year-old crop. Of course, that takes away, in a measure, from the performance of Joseph E. Wideners Chance Shot, winner of both the Withers Stakes and the Belmont Stakes. To be a champion in a bad year naturally does not mean as much as being a champion in a good year. When the contention is rated as ordinary, then the glory of victory is somewhat dimmed, but probably Mr. Bradley, after the running of the Belmont Stakes, is willing to agree that the son of Fair Play belongs to a class that would have made him a good one in the best year. That, of course, can only be an opinion, for there is nothing more hazardous than comparing the horses of one year with those of another; it is really impossible to make any such comparison successfully. One thing is pretty thoroughly established, and that is the general class of the three-year-olds of 1927 is disappointing. The big races that have been decided bring that home forcibly and by this time all of the real possibilities have been brought to the races. Chance Shot will have other opportunities, and plenty of them. Right now he is champion and his crown does not appear to be in any danger. If he should give away weight and win the Dwyer Stakes, then there will be a better chance to form an opinion of whether or not he would have measured up, to a champion in a good year. Joseph A. Murphy, one of the most widely known officials of racing, and a man who has brought about many revivals of the sport, is out with an announcement of a fall meeting for California. To that end he has taken Continued on eighteenth page $ -S HERE AND THERE ON THE TURF $ Continued from second page over the Tanforan course, an old racing ground of the days when there was no prohibition against the sport in the state. Mr. Murphy proposes to give a meeting to begin October 27, and continuing for thirty-seven days, or until December 10. He has also promised that no purse will have a lesser value than ,000 and that there will be an attractive list of stakes to include a race of 5,000. Just what plan will be used to restore the racing to the state on a paying basis has not been set forth, but it is promised that such an announcement will be made in the due. course of time. But in this proposed revival Mr. Murphy says he has the hearty support and co-operation of almost all of the turfmen and breeders of importance in the state. He also said that the decision to race was only reached after a long and careful investigation of the laws of California as well as the court decisions that have been made since the banishment of the thoroughbred racing. Joseph . A. Murphy brought the racing back to Chicago with his opening of the old Hawthorne course and he has played an important part in many another revival, notably in New Orleans. When he promises racing for California, he surely has made a study of plans for that revival and he has always had a fashion i of doing just about what he sets out to I accomplish. .
