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BALANCING THE RACING SEASON By SALVATOB.. TM..T..--.- Several years ago, when the winter racing season began to assume such big proportions, I contributed to Daily Racing Form an article in which I considered the problems bound to arise if it continued to develop at the rate at which it was going. The conclusion arrived at was that, in the latter event, the "regular" season was bound to suffer in a like proportion; that a condition of what in technology is termed "imbalance" was inevitable; and that the correction of that condition was one that would give our track managers, owners. and trainers a "tough proposition" to work out. This assertion was at the time combatted. The argument was advanced that there was no real "cause for alarm;" that a man of straw had been erected to frighten horsemen away from the big winter meetings; that the situation would iron itself out in a practical, normal and satisfactory way just by letting things take their course; and the best thing to do was just to forget it. Well a number of seasons have passed. And something very similar to what I prognosticated has come to pass. "SINK OR SWIM." The American turf has come to the pass where it has elected to "sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish" by the handicap system. Aside from our two- and three-year-olds, every stake horse in training is in effect a handicap horse. We have less than half a dozen weight-for-age stakes left on the racing calendar and not one of them is of more than ordinary value, as- values now go. Once he or she passes the Derby and Oaks stage, the entire contingent of stake racers has only handicaps to start for. It is handicaps or nothing "simply that and nothing more." When, more than a decade ago, first Tijuana and then Agua Caliente inaugurated the giving of a great winter handicap, whose endowment, by progressive stages, was finally raised to the 00,000 level, it in the large sense raised little more than a ripple. Its effect upon the "regular" season at the great eastern tracks was negligible. From time to time some real "crack" was shipped out to the Pacific Coast to try for it, of which Exterminator and Sun Beau "also ran," and Mike Hall and Victorian came through. Carlaris and Sir Harry jumped into momentary fame by winning. Gallant Sir, owned in California, scored the only double in the annals of the event by taking the last two runnings, in 1933 and 1934. PHAR LAP. The race also attracted the sensational .Phar Lap from far-distant Australia. He came, was kindly treated by the handicap-per, and won very easiy. Two weeks later he died under circumstances that were worked up into a scandal by reckless daily newspapers specializing in such muck, there were allegations of poisoning Wholly baseless and the constant repetitions of these fabrications ever since in Australia, in the press there, to which persons connected with the horse have lent their countenance, has been something deplorable in its pernicious effects. Those in a position to .know assert that by this means a feeling of great hostility and bitterness has been worked up in the Antipodes against the American turf, which, though utterly without just cause is nevertheless the fact. The big race at the just-over-the-border Mexican track, taken by and large, did the American turf no good in fact, through the Phar Lap incident it did it actual harm; for the horse won 0,500, which, considering that he was a six-year-old gelding, went a long way toward his own value and was more than he could ever have earned in his homeland had he been kept there. With the advent of the 00,000 race at Santa Anita, however, a wholly different condition was precipitated. It is one so generally known and recognized, by this time, that it requires no detailed diagnosis or dissection here. Suffice to say that its repercussions have been most important and particularly as regards 1 the drain which it and the efforts to win it is causing upon the regular eastern season; and, pursuantly, the institution of the 0,000 race at Hialeah in competition with it. CONDITIONS DISSIMILAR. The conditions thus created have been and are wholly dissimilar from those previously invoked by the Coffroth-Agua Caliente races and others at that time featured by the winter meetings, at Hialeah, New Orleans, etc. as is well remembered, there were two 0,000 handicaps run at New Orleans in the winters of 1927 and 1928 and won by Cotlogomor and Justice F. In the Santa Anita and Hialeah races of 1937, no less than thirty-four of the picked handicap and stake horses of all America contended eighteen at Santa Anita and fourteen at Hialeah. The winner of neither event Rosemont and Columbiana was subsequently able to win another stake during the entire year. Many of the beaten horses were of little subsequent account. But that is not all a large number of horses that had been entered in these events had fallen by the wayside in their preparations and went to swell the roster of "killed, wounded and missing." The ultimate effect of this upon the regular eastern season was not at first realized, and when attention was called to it, efforts were made to minimize it. It was asserted that it would not in any way affect the regular season, and that .all talk to the contrary was mere persiflage. From this the argument proceeded to contend that it was absolutely better for a race horse to campaign the year round, instead of "laying idle" all winter that he would be in less danger of turning up missing when the bugle blew in the gentle springtime and so forth, and so forth, and so on. BIG FIELDS. Now we have put another great "double event" behind us: the Santa Anita Hialeah affairs of 1938. The fields were almost identical, in size, with those of 1937 again the 00,000 handicap drew a field of eighteen horseq, while the Widener drew one of thir- teen, or thirty-one in all. And as before they represented the cream of the all-aged division of stake racers. But this time the casualties were greater than before. Especially on the Pacific Coast. In the weeks preceding the contests the wires brought repeated dispatches telling that this or that candidate of prominence had succumbed to the "grand prep" and would be absent from the field; while in the actual running still others were added to the list. In Florida it was similar; but not quite so many disasters were chronicled. And now we have, just at hand, the lists of entries to the stakes of the Belmont Park and Saratoga meetings; and they show a big falling-off in numbers from last year. Indeed, the lists to several of the principal all-aged fixtures, among the most famous on the calendar, are so slim that, in view of the fact that their values have in some instances been increased over those recently prevailing, there would seem reason to "view with alarm" the situation that had developed. There are several things that it is needful to bear in mind. One is that the glitter of fabulously rich races will always be irresistible to owners and they will flock to them as the moth does to the flame. Another is that no track, nor group of .tracks, can expect to have a monopoly of the "cracks" nor have they, by virtue of any "vested rights," priority of claim upon them as attractions for their meetings. It is the privilege of the owner, or the trainer, to race wherever he listeth, as his desires or the pressure of events may dictate. WELFARE AT STAKE. But, at. the same time, there are much greater values and much larger issues at stake than such immediately personal ones. They concern the general welfare of the whole turf organism; and as such are of the most solicitous concern. Is the present "imbalance" going to become the regular state of racing? Is it a temporary situation, which will not endure, and will it right itself of its own volition? Are we in for a "reorganization" of racing like unto that of the government, which is now the storm center at Washington? Is there going to be a last-ditch struggle between the winter and the regular seasons and, in future, is the latter going to have to play second fiddle to the former? Will there be a rapprochement between them in the interest of the general welfare? I confess that I have no idea what the outcome is to be. Especially as, to such a great extent, self-interest now rules in turf affairs and, with but few exceptions, it is every man for himself and the Old Harry take the hindmost. But it does seem altogether likely that, within the next two years, there must be either some sort of a balance worked out or something resembling chaos will result.
