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• 4 Here and There on the Turf Chicagos Place in Sun. Reign Counts Recovery. Some Belmont Statistics. Ruling Out Elsmere. Progress of Ironsides. e ? The growing importance of Chicago racing was never better illustrated than in the spectacle presented Tuesday at Arlington Park, when such stars as Crystal Pennant, winner of the 1928 Coffroth Handicap; Mike Hall, American record breaker and triumphant in this years Dixie Handicap; Sir Harry, another Coffroth Handicap winner; Florence Mills, which won the Inaugural Handicap at Arlington Park; Sun God II., the French-bred colt with a good record in France, and Handy Mandy, winner of the Latonia Derby and other stakes, made up the field in an overnight race for a purse of ?1,400. Such a field is usually only seen in from ,000 to 5,000 added stake events. That an excellent contest resulted was almost a foregone conclusion, Crystal Pennant winning by a nose from Mike Hall in new track record time. This is just a sample of the great sport in store for the patrons of the loal track and a strong indication of Chicagos place in the turf firmament. Reigh Count is back in training again. The Kentucky Derby winner of this year has recovered from the injuries sustained prior to and in the Derby and was galloped at Arlington Park Wednesday morning. This is indeed good news. It is sincerely hoped that Mrs. John Hertz crack colt will continue to train on and be ready for his engagements at Saratoga. There is also an ardent desire on the part of local followers of the turf to see him in action on one of the Chicago tracks. Undoubtedly his fair owner will be more than pleased to race her champion before the home folks. Some interesting statistics of the Belmont Park meeting, which came to a conclusion last Saturday, show the excellent results from the application of the Joseph E. Widener rule respecting scratches. For the twenty-one days of racing there were 1,454 horses entered and of these 1,298 raced, meaning that there were but 15C excused from starting for one reason or the other. The greatest number of withdrawals was when eighteen, from an entry list of seventy-eight, were excused, leaving sixty to race. The greatest number of starters was on Thursday, May 31, when there were ninety-one horses went to the post, from an original entry list of ninety-eight. There were only five days of the tweuty-one when more than nine horses were excused from racing and on the opening day there were but two withdrawn, while on June 8 only one horse was excused. And it must always be remembered that this is a rule that affords an opportunity to withdraw an entered horse, for a reason that is approved by the stewards A change in the track conditions from the time of entry permits the with drawal of an entered horse, while others may be withdrawn on the report of the veterinarian that it is unfit to race. These figures are of interest for the reason that the new rule had its first trial at Belmont Park and it surely proved entirely satisfactory. It put an end to the entering of horses with no intention of sending them to the post and it gave the public an assurance that the horses published as starters in the entries would be seen racing, unless there was an excellent reason for their absence. At Belmont Park there came frequent changes in the track condition from the I closing of the entries until the race day itself, which accounted for a majority of the scratches. On the day on which eighteen of those named did not go to the post there was prospect of a fast track at the closing of the entries and the track had become heavy for the running of the program. The early opposition to the rule seems to have died away and there can hardly come any further objection after the excellent results that were obtained at Belmont Park, where it was first put into operation. It is always to be deplored when any race meeting is halted by the authorities, for the reason that too often those who do not know get an altogether false impression of racing generally. The Elsmere meeting in Delaware has been abandoned for the reason that it was ruled the method of speculation was a violation of the law. There is little sympathy for the promoters of the meeting or for the horsemen who took part in the short meeting. Before the opening of the meeting every sort of warning was given against the project, and the stewards of The Jockey Club, for the first time in many years, called attention to the rule of racing that disqualified all horsemen, horses, jockeys and officials who take part in an unrecognized meeting. With all these warnings the meeting progressed until it was halted by the authorities and it was an action that was confidently expected by those who were familiar with the laws of Delaware. There is a strong feeling in favor of racing in the state of Delaware and the last effort to have a racing law passed was only defeated by one vote. That heartened the friends of the sport and there was a confidence that another effort might readily meet with success and give racing a footing in the state. Now that this half-mile attempted meeting has been halted, some harm may have been done in the fight for the establishment of the sport in the state. To those who will remember that everything possible was done to discourage the racing, by those with the best interests of the turf at heart, the fizzle at Elsmere will help rather than hurt, but to the general public it only means that a race meeting has been halted by the authorities. They will not stop to take into consideration that it was an unrecognized meeting that was frowned upon by the governing body in New York, and without the sanction of any other governing body of the sport, as far as is known. The Jockey Club is to be congratulated on its effort to dissuade the horsemen from taking part in the meeting, even though that did not prevent the promoters from going ahead with their plans. A like action against any such projects is to be desired for the general good of the turf. By his victory in the mile and a sixteenth of the Broadway Handicap, at a mile and a sixteenth, at Aqueduct on Wednesday, Robert L. Gerrys good three-year-old Ironsides incurs a three-pound penalty in the Brooklyn Handicap to which he is eligible on Saturday. But Ironsides was handicapped at 103 pounds for the famous old mile and an eighth race, and 106 pounds does not appear in any sense an unreasonable weight. This son of Man o War has been improving right along and he has shown that a mile and an eighth is well within his power. His race on Wednesday was an easy one and in that race he was giving away weight to all the others under his burden of 117 pounds. It was unfortunate that G if ford A. Cochrans filly Valkyr was left at the post in the Broadway Handicap, for that, of course, detracted from the race, but Ironsides proved beyond all question his superiority over the others. Of course, it must be remembered that the Broadway Handicap was for three-year-olds that had never won a race of the value of 0,000, so that the real stars of that age division were ineligible, but there are many good ones that have not won a race of that value and it was a good class performance. There is little doubt that before the end of the year Ironsides will not be eligible to a race under like conditions, whether or not he should be the winner of the Brooklyn Handicap.
