view raw text
REFLECTIONS By Nelson Dunstan Many Important Stake Events on Week-End Two-Year-Olds Now Racing at Six Furlongs Monmouth Park Off to Successful Meet Spa Supervisors Should Heed Council NEW YORK, N. Y June 20. Many important events will be staged throughout the country on the week-end. In New York the Aqueduct meeting will come to a close with the running of the 0,000 Brooklyn Handicap. Down at Delaware the card will feature two stake events, one being the 2,500 Diamond State Stakes, for three-year-olds, at a mile and a furlong, and the ,500 Christiana Stakes, for two-year-olds, at five and one-half lurlongs. Monmouth Park will draw its first Saturday throng with the running of the 5,000 Molly Pitcher Handicap, a race for fillies and mares three years old and upward, at a mile and a sixteenth. Two-year-old fillies will feature the card at Suffolk Downs in the running of the Betsy Ross Stakes, at five and one-half furlongs. And, swinging out to the West, we find that Arlington Park also will stage two rich races the 0,000 Hyde Park Stakes, for two-year-olds, at five and one-half furlongs, and the 5,000 Princess Doreen Stakes, for three-year-old fillies, at three-quarters of a mile. Hollywood Parks main attraction will be the Cinema Handicap, a race for three-year-olds at a mile and a sixteenth. It will be important racing from one coast to the other, but many of the events are but forerunners to richer and more colorful ones to be run during July. Although 94 were nominated, only six youngsters contested in the Great American Stakes, at six furlongs, yesterday. The winner, I Will, was two lengths in front of Colin MacLeods Useless, and was clocked in 1:13. I Will, who is owned by Jay Paley, is a colt by Roman Breathless, by Haste, and was secured at the Keeneland sales out of the Elmendorf consignment last summer for 0,500. This colt shows promise, but hardly of the class to threaten Jet Pilot, the undefeated winner of four races, who is now in Chicago. It is still much too early to form any conclusions regarding two-year-olds, for within the next two months many will emerge who may change the entire complexion of the juvenile situation. Reports from the West indicate that Calumet Farm and others have juveniles who shortly will be making their bid for honors. Here in the East next Wednesday the Wakefield Stakes, at six furlongs, probably will see I Will at the post once again, along with Useless and Eternal War, the Simmons colt who has been a disappointment in his last two starts. At the moment, Jet Pilot stands out in the light in the baby division. Monmouth Park had a most successful opening yesterday when 18,724 fans turned out to greet a renewal of the Monmouth track that played such an important part in American racing some 75 years ago. It was truly a "New Jersey Day," for. in the opening event, William Helis Blind Path was the winner over eighth opponents and brought to the Helis Farms at Jobstown, New Jersey, the honor of being the first winner at this track which promises to play such an important part in the racing of New Jersey in the future. Mrs. Andy Schuttingers Sewed Up, a brown filly by Case Ace, won the honors as the first New Jersey-bred to win at the new track and then, in the feature race of the day, W. H. Laboyteaux Pipette, a homebred daughter of Piping Rock, was winner of the Colleen Stakes over Keynote and Bright Song. Many of the best stables in the East were represented on this opening day and this, coupled with fine attendance, augurs well for the success of this track and also of horse racing in New Jersey. While it is true that any opening day at a new track is liable to draw many curiosity seekers, and those who like to be present at an unusual event, it is safe to say that Monmouth Park will draw its share of spectators before racing in the Skeeter State moves over to Atlantic City. Whether the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors will heed the Saratoga Springs Common Council in asking that the tax of 5 per cent be reduced to 2 per cent remains to be seen. If, however, the Board of Supervisors could be made to realize the resentment of the people of racing toward its "bite," we feel sure they would give an ear to the council whose city will be affected if racing is ever discontinued there. Present indications lead to the thought that Saratoga will need all the horses it can get, to say nothing of the players, and the best way to get them is to promptly reduce the 5 per cent tax, which is just as unfair and unjust in Saratoga as it is in New York City and elsewhere. Racing at Saratoga has always been maintained on a high plane, but with such a ruinous tax it would only be a question of time when the upstate sport would deteriorate rapidly. That would endanger the Spa as a racing center, for nearby New Jersey will soon be offering a sport comparable with the best in the East. It stands to reason that with a 5 per cent tax in Upstate New York, and with no such levy in New Jersey, the latter state would be a magnet to New York horse players. At this time of the year, there is always speculation as to how the yearling prices will compare with those of the previous season. It is natural that breeders who will sell their yearlings at Saratoga are not very happy with the trend of affairs at the upstate Spa. Personally, we do not believe that the tax will have anywhere near the effect on yearling sales as it is certain to have on the horse players. Yearling buyers flock to Keeneland, even though there is no racing there during the sales. It is just as logical to assume that they will go to Saratoga to inspect and buy yearlings, even if they do not go to the track to wager on horses. We have been going over the lists of the offerings at both Keeneland and Saratoga and, regardless of the prices obtained, we believe that some of the most beautifully-bred groups of the past decade will be offered. There has been no abatement in the demand for horses during the past season, in fact there is a very definite shortage of high class racing material on our tracks. The yearling market is the best place for owners to bolster their racing strings, and that being the case, we are of the opinion that the demand will be keen. even should the averages not be as high as they were last season.
