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B ET WE EN RACES By Oscar Otis GARDEN STATE PARK Camden N J May 7 Spartan Valor is easily the talk of New Jersey this week what with the son of Attention hav ¬ ing indicated accept ¬ ance of the 130pound impost in the Valley Forge here on Satur ¬ day New Jersey breed ¬ ers are taking what might be termed re ¬ newed inspiration from his exploits and one Barker Seeley presi ¬ dent of the Jersey breeders has launched a movement to have Spartan Valor declared the Horse of the Year of 1952 even though the year still has a long way to run and much will transpire before the staff of experts of DAILY RACING FORM cast their votes But insofar as New Jersey is concerned he is the Horse of the Year already if only for the fact that he has sparked new interest into the Jersey bloodline scene Spartan Valor has also brought the hitherto selfeffacing and quiet trainer Frankie Catrone into the position of a man of consequence and he has risen to the occasion in a manner that has surprised even his closest friends Catrone was the guest the other day at a luncheon spon ¬ sored by Marshall Bainbridge Jr good will dispenser for Garden State at Phila ¬ delphias historic Pen and Pencil Club a luncheon at which important racing per ¬ sonalities are tossed onto the mercies of the questioning press and no questions barred This situation is sometimes conducive to a severe case of nerves on the part of the guests but the luncheon does achieve its purpose to wit the effecting of a closer liaison under informal circumstances be ¬ tween turf personnel and the molders of public opinion in press radio and TV TVA A A A ACatrone Catrone was put into the cross fire and under it he proved himself not only a speaker of some merit but something of a wit as well One scribe asked him in assess ¬ ing Spartan Valor as to why a horse with class would beat his fields of better horses in slower times than a cheaper horse would beat horses of the latters own class but that when the cheaper horse with the best time met the better horses with the slower time the better horse would win Now this question has to deal with true intangibles and is a truism accepted upon the race track without argument but which defies a really lucid explanation Catrone rocked for a moment as if someone had asked him to explain the theory of atomic energy but came up with what will go down in our book as a classic answer Horses is like people and most of them have got more sense than people Incidentally the direc ¬ tor of racing for the W G Helis Jr turf establishment Jock Barshark tells us that the stable is badly unbalanced at the mo ¬ ment being made up of one good horse Spartan Valor and sundry others or dubi ¬ ous merit We will correct this situation this summer when Mr Helis plans to enter the sales of either Keeneland or Saratoga or both and purchase yearlings which we hope will develop to the point where he will have an all over good stable We will continue to breed at the Jobstown farm where we have three stallions Attention Greek Warrior and Pericles at stud Some of the farm is for sale providing the buyers keep the property intact as a farm but Mr Helis plans to retain a sizeable acre ¬ age including that part where the lodge is located locatedA A A A AThe The idea is not exactly new but Garden State Park has developed it far beyond the dreams of most any other race track in America and it is quite something We refer of course to the backstretch building which was erected during the last season and which has centralized all activities in the horsemens area The new building is known as the administration building but in reality it is a community center The new edifice adjacent to the track kitchen houses the shops which sell medication and tack the post office barber shop sub offices of the racing commission a branch of the office of the racing secretary new and complete offices for the veterinarians and their equipment plus a recreation hall for all hands Many tracks have all these facilities but they are scattered Gene Mori and his associates have grouped them into a unit and the building like everything else at Garden State is as modern as tomorrow Its chief value lies in the convenience to all hands handsA A A A AEdmond Edmond G Soule who died in Oakland last week made at least one important con ¬ tribution to the turf which should not be overlooked He did pioneer work in the original solution to a now accepted method of handicapping namely the track vari ¬ ant Soule started from scratch on the problem more than 50 years ago based his elaborate figures on certain key horses i e horses of known merit and who were models of consistency and gauged his com ¬ parative times from their performances Until the day of his death at 84 he used this system not only from track to track but from day to day on the same track when conditions might vary He was among the first if not the first to prove that there are different degrees of fastness on the same track depending upon the depth into which the harrows cut into the cushion Soule was a familiar figure on New York tracks before 1910 but for the last 20 years made his home in California That state owes him a great deal for he helped found Hollywood Park and was a leading factor in the establishment of the present modern and beautiful Golden Gate Fields He was too a member of that van ¬ ishing tribe on the race track whose word was better than his bond Once he bor ¬ rowed 125000 on a nod of the head lost it within one week borrowed another 125 000 and paid both debts back within a month There was not a scratch of a pen or an IOU involved A mans word was good on a race track then or the man wasnt on the race track long longA A A A AMarvin Marvin N Gay turf editor of the Louis ¬ ville Times has stirred up a national con ¬ troversy when he remarked that Old Rose ¬ bud Twenty Grand Whirlaway and Cita ¬ tion were the four greatest winners of the Derby This writer for one goes on record as saying that any greatest list of Ken ¬ tucky Derby winners even limited to four which leaves out Count Fleet is off the beam Hes one of the few really great horses America has ever seen comments Johnny Longden At no time when I rode him did I ever let him extend himself Incidentally time alone can be very mis ¬ leading when judging the calibre of a horse in the Derby or any other classic It is but one guide to class It can be as fallacious as simply taking money won as a guide to innate ability
