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Nelson Dunstan REFLECTIONS By Nelson Dunstan Garden State Prepares for Meeting Aqueduct Meet May Break Records The Fleet vs Older Horses in Fall Jockey Guild Bans Erring Riders NEW YORK N Y June 5 5Civic Civic leaders of Camden and surrounding South Jersey cities will stage a charity horse show at Garden State Park 10 days before the opening on July 7 Younger members of the charity day committee will ride to the races on opening day in costumes of the Gay Nineties Tom Healey is at Garden State at the crack of dawn daily supervising the men working on the track Lord Derby has a highly promising twoyearold filly in Chart Room by Blue Peter She decisively defeated Lt Col John Hay Whitneys New Day the favorite in the Hargrave Stakes One colt and three fillies by Mahmoud will be offered by Alma hurst Farm at the August yearling sales And as usual Arthur B Hancock will offer the largest group that added up spells qua1ity Lincoln Fields is the latest to put into effect bigger purses for better horses Paul Cresci a major stockholder at Garden State Park and a former Penn athlete is now a naval officer American Race Horses 1942 is now on the press Suffolk Downs should break all former mutuel records Jack Fitzgerald and Bobby Ahern will assist Jimmy Loftus with Garden State Park publicity Aqueduct will take over Monday and we look for one of theumost successful meetings it has ever staged The two richest events will be the 25000 added Dwyer and the 30000 added Brooklyn Handi ¬ cap For threeyearolds the Dwyer will be at one and onequarter miles and will be run on June 19 while the Brooklyn Handicap also at one and onequarter miles is for threeyearolds and older horses and will be run on Saturday June 26 the closing day If the Empire City meeting is transferred to Jamaica and the majority feel Governor Dewey will sanction the change it means New York fans will have transportation direct to tracks right up to the time of the Saratoga meeting which in all probability will be staged at Belmont Senti ¬ ment for the Spa meeting at the beautiful Elmont course is strong and if the spur could be used it would be the ideal setting Still if the spur cannot be used many will favor the more accessible Aqueduct for the walk from Queens Village to Belmont is going to be a tough one on hot August days As Aquedqct closes on June 26 Empire City will hold a War Relief Day at Jamaica on July 5 In discussing Count Fleet now racing against older horses one of our favorite sports writers recently said Meeting them this early in the season he Count Fleet would have all the best of the weight scale The shift in the fall is in favor of the older horses and in the fall he may not be the horse he is presumed to be today True the weight scale does favor the older horse for at one and onequarter miles a threeyearold carries 112 pounds in June while in October and the months to follow he must carry 120 pounds The fiveyearold carries 127 pounds in June and 126 in all the months to follow What he failed to take into consideration is that the fiveyearold has long since attained his full growth while the threeyearold is a horse of greater strength size and speed in the fall than the same horse was in the spring It was just a few days back that Ben Jones was talking of this very thing He said to this writer If Count Fleet stays sound throughout the summer he is going to be a mighty hard horse to handle in the fall If anyone thinks that threeyearolds cannot hold their own with older horses in the fall we refer them to the roster of The Jockey Club Gold Cup In its 23 runnings it has been won on 10 occasions by threeyearolds over older horses Ben Jones will not commit himself but we know he would rather have Whirlaway meet Count Fleet now than in the fall In our travels around we hear a lot being said about the yearling sales now being a permanent Lexington Ky proposition and therefore the Saratoga sales have passed from the picture We are a long long way from being in accord with any such thought No matter what price yearlings bring in Lexington we maintain they would bring more at Saratoga We also hear that Saratoga lias reached its end as a racing center We do not believe that either although it does appear there is an excellent cbance for a new track to come into the Metropolitan area with Saratoga continuing under zone two But to get back to the sales what happens after this year is not so much of immediate concern as this years sale They were transferred to Kentucky due to the lack of transportation and it is now everybodys job to do all they can to make them a success The breeders are entitled to wholehearted sup ¬ port and while they were out of line in requesting that racing cease while the sales were staged we would like nothing more than to see a vast throng show up at Keeneland on the three days the yearlings will be offered If after the coming August sales the Kentucky breeders decide they want to continue at Lexington they have every right to do so After all they are the ones who take all the risk in the breeding and rearing of the racing material materialIn In this column recently we stated that the Jockeys Guild officials were debating whether to drop some members due to their bringing adverse publicity on the organ ¬ ization That came about a few days back when at a meeting it was announced Kenneth McCombs has been dropped from the organization for practices detri ¬ mental to the body It will be recalled McCombs was involved in a case of touting a Brooklyn woman out of a considerable sum of money The Guild has had its ups and downs ever since it was organized but it is such actions as that involving McCombs which will convince the outside world they are an organization which will be for the good of racing In numerous instances they have aided boys who have been injured and for that reason alone the Guild is worthy of being encouraged It can be a great force for good or for evil but it appears they are doing all within their power to make their organization one that they and the American turf can be proud of Stirling Young is the hew president while the veterans Johnny Longden and Lester Balaski are the new vicepresidents All three are steady boys who earned the confidence of their fellow riders
