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REFLECTIONS 1; By NELSON DUNSTAN Continued from Page Forty-Eight races did not* include those in which a number of horses were not trying to win. Kling seemingly offered some very weak arguments and when he was driven to the wall stated, "Why dont you tell the nice things of racing. Why dont you tell of what they do for charity." That was just about the worst thing Kling could have said to justify racing for the people of the sport have never trumpeted what racing did for charity or during the war. If anything, it played down the fact that it contributed more than all other sports put together. Then Kling added that he knew Teddy Atkinson and Eddie Arcaro and that he has had them in his home and they are all wonderful fellows. AAA When Kling had finished, Mankiewicz said, "That was the most unqualified piece of boloney I ever heard?" If he would read his own book he would have one of the most unqualified pieces of boloney ever written. Instead of being so polite, Kling should have challenged this author right then and there to name one race that he could say was positively "fixed." This writer has been around the race tracks longer than either the author or the critic and we could not state positively that we ever knew of a race that was pre-arranged, although it developed in Maryland some years ago that there had been one. Racing is not perfect, but it does have the proper authorities to deal with people who prey upon it. For any man to take the air and talk of "fixed races" simply because he copied the idea of people before him, and then pose as an expert on the sport is the height of something or other. Horse racing is the cleanest sport in the world today and the most honestly conducted sport. In England it attracts 200,000 people to an Epsom Derby, and in France 100,000 to the Grand Prix de Paris. In this country it is a magnet for 100,000 at the Kentucky Derby. It contributes close to 00,000,000 annually to the states in which it is legalized. It draws the finest people of every nation and now along comes a guy who wrote a book — and a very poor one — who goes on the air to point out something that may happen once in ten thousand races. Play your horses, Mankiewicz and stop your silly squawking.
