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Charles Hatton THE JUDGES STAND Bv Charles Hatton An Excess of Sacrificing Belmont Spur as W R Aid Stakes Dates Suggestion Early Closing Hurts Oaks NEW YORK N Y May 27 27If If some complete stranger one of Orson Welles more amiable Martians perhaps were to drop in at Belmont Park this afternoon he might be a shade dubious about worldlings vaunted logic Indeed we fear our Martian might hasten home convinced that Voltaires Prof Candide was wrong after all in his doctrine that this is the best of all possible worlds and in it everything happens for the best What better evidence could he find in the worlds largest city than the sight of thousands of those curious anthropoids the racinggoing public trudging wearily along the highways and byways from Queens Village to the track while literally shoals of railroad coaches somnolently gather rust and cobwebs at the very portals of the park We might muster a pretty flurry of explanation or seek to confuse our guest with some such vague remark as cest le guerre But probably he would understand only too well For it is a lot of dreary nonsense anyway one chooses to look at it No less fantastic we submit than our visitor from Mars To be blunt about it these cars idleness represents a wanton waste to the war effort Their operation would not interfere with troop movements transportation of war workers nor of commodities And each day they are idle the thoroughbred industrys yield to federal state and WafRelief coffers is reduced reducedThere There is something incongruous about the fact that the LtRR utilizes the Belmont spur as a yards but pulls empty coaches maddeningly past footsor nomegoing racegoers each afternoon One would think Long Island had seceded from the Union This is the ultimate in sacrifice for it sacrifices the war effort itself f x The significance of these trains to state and federal governments War Relief arid New York racing does not begin and end with Belmont Parks season by any means There are Aqueduct and Saratoga associations meetings to consider George Bulls association can produce more revenue functioning at Belmont with trains than at Aqueduct it seems superfluous to say The alternative may be a Saratoga meet ¬ ing at Aqueduct with a consequence of diminishing returns at the Queens County Jockey Clubs own meeting induced by too many consecutive dates on the same scene As sceneAs an aside the horsemen appear almost 100 per cent for SaratogaatBelmont Without any pretense to having conducted a Gallup poll we venture to think the public would much prefer Belmonts verdant park to Aqueducts unrelieved heat in August AugustBriefly Briefly there are myriad reasons both good and sufficient for utilizing thes cars whereas we have yet to hear a single sound one to the contrary Nor should the tracks feel they are asking some special dispensation Only an eccentric could so construe it itMeanwhile Meanwhile Empire Citys status under the renewed pleasuredriving ban if this restriction is continued through July is rather unresolved too But that is another story New England has a roster of name horses peculiarly its own Entertainers like those remarkably reliable mares Sweet Willow Spiral Pass and Bow Low x and those competent horses Through Bound and Red Vulcan whose fame is admittedly more regional than national in scope but who represent infallible box office to fond and provincial Yankees Several of these down East satellites will grace Suffolks Saturday and Memorial Day stakes stakesBostonians Bostonians never let New Yorkers forget Spiral Pass won the New England Oaks at Vagrancys direct expense and this good filly is expected to appear for forthe the pendingSweet weekends 5000 Puritan She is New Englands Queen Regnant pending Sweet YVHIows return Suffolk Downs sagacious Uncle Chuck Adams is donating the East Boston clubs brightest day in the turf sun the Fourth of July to American racings War Relief fund this summer Similarly that pensive Chicagoan Ben Lindheimer has designated the Arlington Associations glorious Fourth to this patriotic project Perhaps Empire will be the donor of this same auspicious date also adopting the Turf Committee of Americas cause suggestion for a nationwide turf holiday for War Relief on the Fourth FourthIt It will be noted eventually and inevitably that the 50000 Massachusetts will be offered at Suffolk on this date the 30000 Stars and Stripes on the Arlingtonat Washington card and the 5000 Demoiselle a relatively insignificant twoyearold filly stake at Empire EmpireAt At first blush this rather sharp contrast may seem to put Empire in rather a bad light But there are two viewpoints Associations usually and with good business acumen form corporations to stage these War Relief days One attitude is that the staging of opulent races on War Relief cards tends to decrease revenue for these agencies because of tax exemptions Itis pointing out that huge crowds Tvould attend anyway on holidays The other side contends that these rich stakes attract name horses that in turn stimulate attendance and play to a degree offsetting the extent of this deduction deductionThe The 30000 Butler most pretentious of Empires summer annuals was decided on the Fourth in 42 but was moved to July 10 this season which seems to have virtually forced the decision of the Massachusetts on the Fourth There is something of a conflict between the Boston and Chicago holiday stakes not to mention the further fact that both are in uncomfortably close juxtaposition to the Brooklyn and Butler ButlerAll All this impels us to venture a suggestion whether it is merely true to tripe or has merit Some one has said La Rochefoucauld probably That the true way to be deceived is to think ones self more knowing than others At any rate it occurs to us that possibly The Thoroughbred Racing Associations can achieve a rearrangement of Fourth of July features in future seasons For whether or not there exists the need for War Relief agencies racing generally would benefit enormously through an agreement among major tracks to stagger their stake dates to avoid conflicts in engagements for handicap per ¬ formers threeyearolds and juveniles juvenilesRobert Robert Kleberg whose King Ranch in Texas is a veritable state within a state turned up at Belmont Park for the Coaching Club Oaks and was by all odds the happiest man in the New York seasons smallest crowd when his homegrown Too Timely sluiced to the stand in this mile and a half fleeing before Askmenow as if she were a smallpox victim We suppose everyone knows by now Too Timely is a half sister of the fabulous Market Wise who had captured the preceding days Little Suburban and now is the favorite to annex the Suburban itself Their dam On Hand performed but once finishing third and was bred at four Nor is Too Timely the first Discovery filly to stay well For we recall with a shudder the perfectly incredible sight of Dark Discovery leading Alsab Marriage and Shut Out in last falls Gallant Fox Handicap
