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Here and There on the Turf Bold Venture Flashes Much Promise Commanded High Price Last Year Trend Is Toward Shorter Races Action Against It Is Urged During the past year the two largest known offer for horses in training in this country were for Top Row and Bold Venture. A. A. Baroni turned down a bid of 5,000 for his gallant performer and his judgment was justified when the son of Pea- . nuts won the 00,000 Santa Anita Handicap a few weeks later. During the Saratoga meeting last August, Morton L. Schwartz was placed in the position of accepting or declining an offer, believed to have been in the neighborhood of 0,000, for Bold Venture. Schwartz kept his colt and saw him go to the post in the Hopeful Stakes as the favorite, but the son of St. Germans and Possible, by Ultimus, was unable to deliver and a short time later was incapacitated for the season because of illness. The New York sportsman may have been sorry during the fall and winter that he did not sell Bold Venture, the only horse left in his stable, but he shouldnt feel so badly about his decision now. Bold Venture is fresh from his first start as a three-year-old, in which he soundly trounced three other members of his division including the speedy Galsac. The latter was unable to keep step with the St. Germans colt in the early stages, even though Ira Hanford had Bold Venture under the stoutest sort of restraint. Through the stretch the Schwartz colorbearer held his long lead without once being called upon for anything like his speed, although the distance of the race was a mile and seventy yards. This is the route of the Wood Memorial Stakes, feature of Jamaicas meeting, and principal preliminary Hor the Kentucky Derby, and Bold Venture certainly must be regarded as a leading candidate, even with Hollyrood, Bright Plumage, Granville and other fine three-year-old prospects being groomed for it. As a two-year-old Bold Venture had more than his share of bad luck, falling over a fence at Arlington Park and then throwing his rider while at the post for the Arlington Futurity and running away a mile. At Saratoga he narrowly escaped another accident and in the Hopeful running was given but little chance to show the speed he had demonstrated in his previous outing in which he ran six furlongs in 1:12 to defeat Grand Slam. No other two-year-old ran that fast at the Union Avenue course last season. Then followed his illness at Belmont Park, but Schwartz and trainer Max Hirsch held their faith in the son of St. Germans and if he can have as much good luck as he had misfortune last year, he may prove the top-notcher of his division during the present campaign. Bold Venture has begun the year in very auspicious fashion and needs only to keep up the good work to prove his owners judgment of thoroughbred values. A very tedious compilation, but one interesting to racing fans as well as to horsemen and breeders has been made by the Blood Horse, thoroughbred breeding weekly, showing the average distance of winning races classified according to sires. Races of two-year-olds are not included because they are nearly all in sprints. Only three sires in 1935 had performers whose victories were in events averaging more than a mile and one furlong in distance. Of the trio, Mont DOr and McKinley had one representative each, but Bostonian had out twenty-one winners of sixty-four races averaging nearly nine and a half furlongs. The statistics are not as encouraging as they might be to those leaders sponsoring longer races because the percentages of horses winning at a mile up to nine furlongs and at seven furlongs up to a mile showed decreases, while the percentage of sires having out winners of- races shorter than three-quarters was larger. The figures show definitely the trend toward shorter races, for which racing associations, trainers and breeders all are to bjame in their ratio, .The associations are permitting their secretaries to write conditions for more sprints because the dally programs are easier to fill as a result and so often dashes are submitted for longer events when the latter fail to draw entries large enough to suit the track managers. Trainers too frequently follow the easiest path and do not prepare their charges for longer races, nor do they make a stand against the tracks when the condition books are not carried out through no fault of their own. Breeders are to blame in a much lesser degree because they have specialized on producing horses with speed and precocity. A concerted effort is necessary if the average distance of American races is to be increased. Associations must schedule more longer events and make them stick even if the entries are small. Horsemen must prepare their charges for such campaigning and breeders must strive to produce more stamina and ruggedness. The transition can only be gradual, but it will make racing a finer sport than it is.
