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REFLECTIONS By CHALLENGER Most Successful Season of Decade Championships Are Still in Doubt Meissen Most Talked About Horse Golden Gate Stockholders Quit HOLLYWOOD Calif June 27 27Saturdays Saturdays important events will end the most successful first halfyear experienced in a long time With next Friday July 4 even more important races will be staged and with the coming of August Saratoga in the East and Del Mar in the West will be in full swing To date Whirlaway has been the sensation of the season and although it now appears as if the Classic in Chicago will be his next start it is a foregone conclusion he will also be at Saratoga for the season Beyond the three yearolds championships are very much up in the air In the handicap divisionr Eight Thirty had his brief spell of success and now has been retired Challedon the horse of two years will probably make his debut next Friday in the American Handicap at Hollywood Park and from that effort fans will get a line on his chances in ttie Hollywood Gold Cup and Sunset Handicap If he is his old self we can see no horse on the grounds beating him although a meeting of the Brann champion against Mioland and Big Pebble is certain to draw a huge throng The twoyearold division is slowly taking shape and by the end of Saratoga should be ready for classification Results and changes in former years stress that it pays to wait until September before endeavor ¬ ing to classify the juveniles juvenilesMeissen Meissen the Peruvian importation has become the talk of the coast Some one has dubbed him the Peruvian Panther and though he may prove the great horse some of the boys apparently believe lie is we are going to give him the same fishy eye we gave that stumblebum Winooka the Wizard until he proves it in competition Winooka taught us a lesson When the Australian came here basking in the reflected glory of Phar Lap a truly great horse his manager Rufe Naylor scared off most of the owners in this country by tales of this horses prowess Finally Sheldon Fairbanks owner of Gold Step challenged Naylor for a match race and a side bet of 5000 only to have Naylor turn him down cold Gold Step could have beaten Winooka the best day he ever saw and so could most American horses with any pretentions to class A T Jergins the man who imported Meissen is a sportsman of the first water But with all due respect to him the ballyhoo about The Panther will remain ballyhoo with us until the South American proves he really has the stuff On the whole the story of imported horses is none too brilliant and simply for the reason that in the majority our homebreds have been too good for them So take our tip and await actual competition before falling for the ballyhoo which is unloosened whenever an imported horse reaches these shores shoresFantastic Fantastic Golden Gate the prize fiasco of the turf world finally gave up the ghost The stockholders of the Golden bubble have given up by asking the bankruptcy court to liquidate the venture That liquidating the venture can mean one of a dozen things The most probable of which is that some one will obtain one of the most beautiful courses in the world for the proverbial song For it must go under the auctioneers hammer and to the highest bidder Whether the track will ever open is a moot question and we say this regardless of the rumors that representatives of various wealthy groups will be on hand when the auctioneers call for bids Racing is no different than any other business It must be organized and developed along business ¬ like lines and by people who know the business from top to bottom To date the venture has not had the chance such a beautiful plant deserves But even though it may be bought for a fraction of what it cost must better it be left to rot than delivered into hands of those who would look upon it as a commercial venture with no thought to the harm to racing should it fail Reputable men who know racing and its manage ¬ ment might have a chance of putting it over overNew New York States Racing Commissioner Herbert Bayard Swope in ter ¬ minating the suspension of a trainer and groom for rcgligence states it is the opinion of that body that a horse cannot be reached if simple precautionary measures are taken before a race Reading the findings of the New York commission makes one wonder all the more about the case in California Swope states that in the analysis of 1400 saliva and urine tests in 1940 not a single case of drugging was detected Yet within a week or ten days in California no less than nine cases arc supposed to have taken place and practically all of them on horses from reputable barns In California the owner is also held responsible while in New York the trainer and groom must shoulder the responsibility The New York commission contends it has been established without doubt that carelessness on the part of the trainer or groom or both lias been the chief contributing factor where a horse has been drugged Personally we are of the opinion if nine horses were actually stimulated in California it was purely an act of sabotage and that when the first case was discovered the authorities should have sought the culprits rather than the eight additional horses Down at Agua Caliente on Sunday they will stage the Darktown Derby and from all indications about ten will face the starter Only colored jockeys can accept mounts and that brings to mind the dearth of colored riders now plying their trade on major courses Occasionally we see a good colored steeplechase rider but they are a novelty as flat riders on major courses today A generation ago they were to be found in numbers Most Englishmen will tell you that Fred Archer was the greatest jockey that ever lived The greatest American jockey of all time is mainly a matter of opinion But in any contest the name of Isaac Murphy would certainly come up for consideration Called the colored Archer he was the best of his color throughout the world and some old timers contend he had no peer regardless of color Many other fine colored riders of a bygone day can be recalled But they seem to have disappeared with this decade They are always thinking up novelties at Agua Caliente and have a real one in this Darktown Derby
