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THE JUDGES STAND By Charles Hatton Empire, at Jamaica, Opens Today Occupation and a Minor Shadow I Spa Plans Hurdles at Belmont I Vet-at-Post Policy Commended NEW YORK, N. Y., June 26. The Easts first transplanted turf season begins Monday when Empire City moves to Jamaica for its annual July meeting of 24 days at a rental of . The Butler heirs regret that it is impossible, under somewhat stifling circumstances as to transportation, to stage this meeting on the Yonkers hilltop, and that they must perforce disappoint their patronage in the fashionable Westchester area. It is regrettable both for the sentimental and business reasons, we should think. This maneuver involves a high tariff. It is our understanding that the Empire City Racing . Association proposes to contribute its Fifth of July program to War Relief. The ,000 Demoiselle Stakes, for juvenile fillies, will enliven proceedings that afternoon. This comparatively modest stake makes for greater revenue for the Turf Committee of Americas relief fund. The meetings first stake event is Saturdays 5,000 added Empire Cfty Handicap,, which contains an exciting prospect of bringing together Vincentive and Famous Victory under handicapper Campbells estimates of them. It will be interesting to note if Campbell joins in the popular theory McCreary virtually waited Famous Victory out of first award in the Dwyer, by the way. Two who will not appear for the Empire City are Gold Shower and Tip -Toe. They are among the many whose underpinning did not survive Aqueduct racing. Tip-Toe, it is said, bowed in one leg in the Dwyer. Charles Matron fairly acceptable line on how Occupation might be expected to fare against a fit Count Fleet in the Classic, in which Mrs. Hertz singularly swift colt will not appear unless he is fit, was afforded when he encountered Slide Rule and scratched home a diminishing head before that "show of Count Fleets shadow." So far as Occupations capacity to stay a mile and a quarter is concerned, Burley Parke has made no predictions. Possibly Occupations "sore heels" stung him. Fred Parks, the indefatigable racing secretary-handicapper of the steeplechase and hurdle events in New York, is encouraged to hope that Saratoga will provide facilities for the staging of hurdles at its Belmont Park meeting. These hurdle contests are somewhat less thrilling spectacles than are steeplechases. Their raison detre is as a medium of experiencing more thoroughbreds for chasing. Occasionally a horse displays a marked talent for hurdle racing. Off hand. Lovely Night and Navarin may be cited as cases in point. The ancient Navarin, who early this week amputated Lovely Nights about a mile and a half hurdle course record at Aqueduct, is an interesting animal. He is the last of the French "subscription jumpers" imported a few seasons back to continue active. • . At some risk of appearing impertinent this observer has noted a policy in New York racing which he commends to the supervisors of the sport in other locales. Each day, a duly authorized "vet" is stationed at the starting point of every race, providing a quick check on runaways or entrants injured in the gate. He serves in another, more subtle capacity. At tracks where a lax surveillance permits, unscrupulous riders, resentful of the odds displayed on the "tote" board during the post parade, have been known to encourage their mounts to run away, hopeful of a refund. Precisely when we may expect Alsab to resume his career is one of those highly abstruse subjects like the late Arthur Brisbanes treatise on the blue-eyed people and the brown-eyed people, or one of Westbrook Peglers satires on the freckled and non-freckled populace. A good deal depends on Alsab and he is not articulate. Last May Sarge Swenke cocked his inevitable stogie at a confident angle and announced Alsab could be counted a Stars and Stripes probable. However, an unprecedented sequence of muddy tracks disrupted Alsab s training schedule completely. Perhaps the most sensibly obvious prediction is to say merely that he will reappear when he is ready to race. Herbert Bayard Swope was not prompted by a loquacious disposition to urge that the NARC adopt a resolution to recognize one anothers rulings in a cooperative effort to suppress foul riding. So far as this interested observer can determine exactly nothing has come out of that suggestion. As if you did not already know, several erring jockeys who were persona non grata last spring now are active in various sectors. The Judge is all for "tempering justice with mercy." But if turf historians devote as many as three lines to these modern-day headless horsemen of Sleepy Hollow it will, inevitably, be in a derogatory vein. Commissions who license them are guilty of perpetrating an outrage on the public weal. In all the reams of drivel being devoted to a doomed attempt to justify dispensing with the claiming clauses in more of those overnight events fashioned for cheap horses, the public never has been mentioned. Why not drop the pretense? Nobody Is fooled for a moment about he frightful form upheavals that would ensue in non-claiming races for claiming class horses. It is significant that those horsemen who take an occasional flier in the "tote" are among the many who regard this movement with a jaundiced eye. Aside from removing the liability of loss of a horse via the claiming box as a penalty for manipulating them, this would mean a substitution of more overnight handicaps for the reduction in races attaching the claiming clause. We wonder, have those who advocate abandoning the price tags considered this frying pan into the fire aspect of the matter. There once was a trite saying in New York turf circles that: "Nobody ever became rich betting on Vosburghs handicaps." We think that is equally to be applied to Campbells. Jockey Alfred Robertson, who is more retiring than Patti, in all probability rode his last race when he came a cropper on the flat as one of his mounts failed to go to Aqueducts Tattenham Corner on Dwyer day. Robby has ever reflected credit on the sport and, for a time, was the ablest exponent of his profession. It is doubtful if any more glowing tribute to his skill exists than that Jimmy Rowe, Sr., approved him.
