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BETWEEN RACES * 0SCM °™ CAMDEN, N. J., May 16.— Capots sparkling victory in the seventy-third running of the Preakness down at Pimlico on Saturday which, while it did not clear up the status of the present three-year-old crop as to the claim of championship, at least gave a rather positive refutation to the thesis of a considerable number of turf people that our three-year-olds this year were a rather mediocre lot. Even admitting that Pimlico was about as fast as it had been in recent years, and perhaps aided, rather than hindered, by the light rains which preceded the running of the race itself, a mile and three-sixteenths in 1:56 is not the hallmark of an ordinary horse. Indeed, the Preakness developed into one of the best runnings in the long history of the race. Palestinian certainly proved himself as "better than an empty stall" by his bold challenge in the stretch, missing, as the photographs show, by a short head or a good, long nostril. The defeat of Ponder, and most observers thought he could not have mised being third in another stride, instead of fifth. We do not believe that Ponder lost any prestige in the affair. Rather it would merely serve to indicate that he is one of those rarities, but by no means extint, types of the American turf which may be rated as true cup horses. Speculation began immediately after the cheering for the victorious Capot had died down as to what the outcome would have been had the race been at a mile and a quarter. Certainly Ponder would be most feared by any horse today at a distance of, say, the mile and a half of the third, and as yet to be decided, final Preakness Proves Worth of Three-Year-Olds Time of 7:56 Is Better Than Ordinary Sam Fisher, 91, Was Honored Guest at Race ■ Ira Drymon Has Kind Words for Horse Assn. leg of the mythical but nonetheless real "Triple Crown." Noble Impulse, who set the sizzling pace until inside the eighth pole, proved himself of the sterner stuff at a middle distance. Sun Bahram ran surprisingly well in the colors of Mr. E. H. Ellison, Jr., and a slight improvement from his Preakness effort would place this son of Bahram among the leading three-year-olds of the 1949 era. All in all, we venture to say that the immediate months ahead will be the most interesting in years in so far as the three-year-old division is concerned. AAA Two items on Preakness Day could not escape observation. One was the fine gesture of Henry Parr IH. in inviting 91-year-old Sam Fisher out as the guest of honor for the race. Fisher rode two Preakness winners, Knight of Ellerslie in 1884 and The Bard in 1886. The management gave him the royal treatment, luncheon in the old club and the best box in the place right at the finish line. The second was the enterprise of some Baltimore citizen, Who did not believe the original forecast as to fair weather, later revised after most everyone was at the track, to include possible showers. They had a huge stock of raincoats on hand, which sold briskly at fifty cents per coat. Ira Drymon, president of the Horse Association of America, cited some significant trends of the various breeds of horse* in America at a talk given before the Maryland Breeders Association at their annual meeting here a few days ago. Drymon revealed that the work of the Horse Association was centering more and more upon the light horse industry, than on the previous bulk of effort, the draft horse. The last available census of livestock in the nation shows that the draft horse has diminished by about two-thirds from its 1918 figure, namely, from nearly 27 million to an estimate of slightly more than nine million. While the draft horse has shown a steady decrease in value as well as in numbers, the trend in the light horse has been exactly t"he reverse. Drymon dramatized to Max*yland thoroughbred breeders the correlation and scientific analysation of information gathered from the 48 states on problems affecting the the horse, which information is made available to all members of the Horse Association. Among the most valuable to date have been the management procedures, including soil, average rainfall, average humidity and temparture, fertilization and pasturage rotation. As established and tested by Ivor Balding at the C. V. Whitney farm near Lexington, "the mineral deficiency char.ts of the nation by states and localized areas, the practices which have been in vogue at A. B. Hancocks Claiborne Stud and which have increased yearling production per mares bred to a percentage high above the national level, and the inbreeding experiments on a large scale Continued on Page Eight BETWEEN RACES By OSCAR OTIS Continued from Page Forty-Four as practiced at the King Ranch in Texas. These latter experiments include both cattle and quarter-horses. AAA Drymon made two significant observations to the Maryland breeders. The first was that the greatest unsolved problem of breeders was the improvement of pasturage, advances in agronomy, as great as they have been, have not matched strides with veterinary science. The goal in pasturage," of course, is to be able to keep more head on a given acreage, limit, if not eliminate, parasites, and artificially add any needed major mineral deficiences. He indicated that tests to date had shown that minor deficiencies were not as important . as many had heretofore considered. Nor does Drymon believe that it " is any accident that the great horse-raising areas of America, particularly those of the thoroughbred, where the difference in hundreds of thousands of dollars may be measured by noses, have in the main the fewest minor elemental deficiences. Drymon, who has lived through many cycles on the turf, is of the opinion that the economic law of supply and demand will right the breeding industry, or perhaps we should say, gear the breeding industry, to the needs of the turf. The fact that an over or under supply of thoroughbreds usually does not become self evident until, three years after the breeding season. This item, perhaps, could make the period of adjustment more- painful than would occur in other fields of agricultural endeavor, but painful or not, the adjustment will be made. It may not be news, but it could be added that the "mule" has been deleted from the one-time title of the Horse and Mule Association of America. "The mule has no pride of ancestry, nor iiope of posterity," said Drymon in explaining the reason for the shortening of the associations title. AAA Horses and People: Ray Brysons many friends will be happy to know he has rallied faster than might be expected from a heart attack and wont have to remain in the hospital too long. . . . Thinking perhaps he had been in office too long, Henry Straus of Baltimore decreed that in the recent election of the Maryland Breeders Association, members should vote by secret ballot instead of pond_ering J,he recommendations of a nominating committee. Result, Straus was unanimously elected to serve his third term as prexy of the group. ... A horse running here is named Water Melon, which • makes it open season for the wits, who proclaim, "They are going to cut a water melon today." y
