view raw text
Here and There on the Turf Whitney Warns of Commercialism Deplores Lack of Distance Races Believes Education Will Help Must Preserve Spirit of Racing i. .4 This space today is being given to the major part of the address made Thursday night by John Hay Whitney at the annual dinner of the Thoroughbred Club of America at Lexington at which his mother, Mrs. Payne Whitney, was the honored guest. After relating the growth of racing during the time he has been connected with it, comparing 1915 with 839 days of racing with a distribution of ,800,000, with 1937 when more than 4,000,000 was given as stakes and purses in 2,140 racing days, the president of the American Breeders Association and member of the New York State Racing Commission placed the sport in the category of big business and in this respect, he said: "There are dangers ahead of us in conducting racing as a business. We hear all too much talk of turnover, gate receipts, daily double and such like office ballyhoo, and the success of a track is too often judged by the size of its dividends. We all know that the sincere and relentless efforts of many of you to improve the type of races which are offered have met with too little success. Weight-for-age and distance races do not fill and tracks dont put them on. The enormity of this problem is perhaps best suggested by the fact that even here at Keeneland, a track intended primarily in the sport of racing and not in the commerce of racing, the attempt to establish an annual classic, deserving of the name was a miserable failure. "In contrast to this idea was todays program at Keeneland five out of seven races at six furlongs, the others at a mile and a sixteenth, and no weight-for-age race of any sort during the meeting. The recent futile attempt to increase weights has been another discouraging setback. But there is an encouraging thing about the American public. "It has an unquenchable thirst for education. If the traditional races, the weight-for- Continued on twenty-second page.. j HERE AND THERE ON THE TURF Continued from second page. age and distance races are really better for the sport and the development of thoroughbred horses, I am optimistic enough to believe that the public can be educated to appreciate and demand them. "Only the persons who are close to breeding and racing and familiar with their traditions and purposes are qualified to teach the public what to demand. It is only they, who have "a permanent interest in the development of thoroughbred horses who will have the patience and conviction which is required of leaders. It is these people, identified as they must be in the public mind with the spirit of racing, who cannot fail in their obligation. Pressure of commercialism has driven the horseman into the back seat. But a good back seat driver at least knows the way, and surely if we have any sense of direction we will never permit race horses to become merely numbers on a gigantic wheel. "There are dangers ahead not only in the "commercialism business so destructive to sport. There are also dangers in the supervision of authorities. The function of such authorities must remain supervision. In the case of racing, as in the case of other business affected with public interest, supervision should not become detailed operation and control. The colorful tradition and sportsmanship of racing should be maintained. The initiative of private bodies like The Jockey Club, your Thoroughbred Club, Breeders Associations, and similar organizations, all vital in the history and to the future of racing, should be encouraged and their functions preserved. It is equally important that the authorities should co-operate in a sympathetic spirit, for only in this way can racing as a sport survive. It is most urgent that you, who know what I mean by the spirit of racing, should see clearly this conflict of interest between commercialism and sport. We cannot allow the spirit of racing to be bought."
