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Here and There on the Turf i Oaks Loses Its Interest Washington Park Gains Speed American Derby a Natural Fillies Lose Edge Easily The Coaching Club American Oaks will be renewed at Belmont Park Saturday in case anyone is interested This event of a mile and three furlongs is the last of its kind of any value and importance remaining on the spring and early summer calendar Formerly this offering of the Westchester Racing Association meant something as did the Pimlico Oaks Kentucky Oaks Latonia Oaks Illinois Oaks and Arlington Oaks but now it is just another contest and one excit ¬ ing the public absolutely not at all allJust Just why the publics interest in three yearold filly racing has waned is hard to Bay unless it can be attributed to the decline in values of the various Oaks Not so many 7ears ago the Coaching Club American Oaks iad nearly 20000 for its winner and it always grossed well above that figure but Saturdays victress will be lucky if she can return 10000 to her owner In the days of prosperous racing 10000 was the usual sum added to the several Oaks events and with a regular series of these races offered just as there is a group of Derbys now owners of good threeyearolds were able to map out a busy and sometimes lucrative schedule lor f fNow themv Now Belmont Parks Oaks is the only worthwhile race of this kind decided in America with the lone exception of the Alabama Stakes which is annually decided at Saratoga Both of these events owe the largest portion of their value to the nomina ¬ tion fees and payments The Westchester Racing Association adds only 3500 to the Coaching Club and with five starters this amount is slightly more than onethird of what Saturdays renewal will be worth When all the Oaks carried big purses three yearold fillies did not bother about running in Derbys They stuck to their own division until late summer or fall before talcing oh the colts which is the proper time for them to tackle masculine opposition oppositionRecent Recent racing and the work tab indicate the Coaching Club field as embracing Belair Studs Fleam Glen Riddle Farms Gold and Black Mrs W Plunket Stewarts Lady Reigh Whcatley sStables Dusky Princess Greentree Stables Dabchick Mrs John Hay Whitneys Brown Witch and George D Wid eners Waterwitch Bazaar 13 R Bradleys crack filly is eligible to the affair but she has done very little speed work since the Kentucky Derby unless Dick Thompson has been1 training her by moonlight and so her Continued on twentyeighth page
