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y.-. ............... i Here and There j on the Turf t Massachusetts Halts Camera Use I i Outside Horse Is Not Favored ! Public Is at Disadvantage Garner, Pool Still Riding Well j ! . j The Massachusetts State Racing Commission has ordered Suffolk Downs and Aga-wam to discontinue use of the camera in deciding close finishes, thereby heeding many protests by the public and horsemen alike. At both tracks the Waite machine was being used. In Maryland, where racing has been successful for a large cluster of years and the fans are as wise as they come, the Waite camera has proven satisfactory not only to the vast majority of the public and horsemen but to members of the State Racing Commission who put the apparatus to exhaustive tests to determine whether the inside or outside horse in a tight finish had an edge. Every other camera now in use has been subjected to the same sort of experiments to determine their accuracy and with their shutters working horizontally instead of vertically they must be fair to all horses. Ever since the introduction of the camera, horses on the outside apparently seem to have won the majority of close finishes and the angle is cited. There is always an angle for the spectator because he is located in the grandstand or clubhouse which seldom is constructed parallel with the track and as the judges -stand obscures vision directly on the finish line, the public is in no position to dispute either the decision of the officials or the cameras work. Before this apparatus was introduced, the inside horse was victorious in the majority of nose finishes and the reason for this as explained by eye specialists is the object farthest away is the first to be recorded by human seeing mechanism. The public therefore became accustomed to seeing the inside" horse having the advantage and blamed it on the angle. So what often appeared to be the inside horse winning by a nose was more likely the outside racer winning by the same margin or it was a head heat. When the judges saw the outside horse getting to the finish in front by a nose, more than likely he actually scored by a head and when the outside runner was beaten by what appeared to be a head, the margin between him and the animal along the rail was less than that. The public had become familiar with the inside horse having the advantage and had figured out the angle as much as possible accordingly. Now the camera has come into use and the old order is changing with the result that the spectator must revise his judgment of what is the angle from his position. There is no doubt of the fairness of a capable camera. Some of the machines that have been tried out have been failures but others have not failed. The principal complaint against most of those now used is its inability to "stop" the horses directly on the line. In this respect the high speed motion picture camera pioneered by Santa Anita and now adopted by Narragansett and Arlington Parks has an advantage. .Continued on thirty-fifth page. HERE AND THERE ON THE TURF Continued from second page. Willie Obert is the oldest jockey plying his profession in America, but two other battle-scarred veterans still active and doing right well for themselves at Latonia are Earl Pool and Mack Garner. They have been contemporaries on the Kentucky circuit for nearly two decades. Pool is the elder by a couple of years, but Garner has been riding just as long, having begun when he was 14 years of age. Both veterans have had their ups and downs, the latter caused by accidents and the easy life, but when both retire they may feel very proud of their records. Not all of their riding has been confined to the Middle West, but Garner has seen more of the metropolitan and Maryland racing than Pool, having gone to New York in 1926 to join the William Ziegler stable, after which he rode for Joseph E. Widener, E. R. Bradley, Greentree Stable and Brookmeade Stable, which gave him the opportunity to ride some of the best horses this country has seen during the past decade. Hawthorne closes its thirty-one day meeting this afternoon with black ink being used. It was a new experience for the Chicago Business Mens Racing Association to operate in the spring, but the new schedule of dates granted by the Illinois State Racing Commission was accepted gracefully, and the Cicero course did its best to provide a good meeting. Consequently interest in the" sport increased steadily and the final week has seen the sport moving along at fine momentum. The best day financially was Memorial Day when more than 00,000 was wagered. Hawthorne was blessed with clear weather and a fast track practically throughout the meeting in contrast to the same period last year when Washington Park was in operation, the Homewood track being muddy from steady rains during the greater part of the meeting. :
