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3 1 On the Trot I | I By MORRIE KURLANSKY I Starter Forgotten Man of Sport Must Determine Speed of Field £ Dale Starts at All Chicago Tracks •7 MAYWOOD PARK, Maywood. 111., April - 30. — The forgotten man of racing is the j starter. In the case of harness racing, the * starter and his mobile gate propelled the sport from obscurity into a prominent place in racing annals. For. without the modern ! method of g e t ti n g j fields away, the gentle- J men sport of sulky i racing still would be in the county f a i r | stages where it would take perhaps six or I seven hours to run off a normal nine-race j program. Chicagolands sulky starter is — John C. Dale, a native of Mt. Vernon. 111., who looks like a rear-gunner in a B-29 while getting the fields away at Maywood Park. The trials and tribulations of a harness race starter are infinitely more than a thoroughbred starter who has a stationary gate and several assistants to aid in getting off perfect starts. The little man perched on the rear-end of a highpowered Buick-built gate has to be all eyes, ears and hands. The task of starting horses entails hours of study, patience and understanding of horse problems. A field of green trotters demands a different way of starting than a field of good-mannered campaigners. First consideration of a starter is the average ability or speed of the field or trotters or pacers he has on hand each night. With fast class performers he can approach the starting point at a much greater speed than he could with younger horses as yet not too firmly grouped in their respective gaits. Primary mission of all starters is to give every horse in a given field an even break, j With two-year-olds, for instance, John Dale practically "walks up" to the starting I point the field in order to get them settled in their stride. He must watch that all horses are well up to the wing in their assigned positions. There are always some horses who lag behind while others try to "push" the gate. Here Dale has to strike a happy medium in picking up speed so that no horse is at a disadvantage once the gate has reached the starting wire. It is noteworthy that although the starter is required by official rules to get all horses away in position and on gait, no recall will be given for a bad actor or a breaking horse. A recall, however, will be made only for the following reasons: 1. A horse scores ahead of the gate; 2. there is interference; 3. A horse has broken equipment; 4. A horse falls before the word "go" is given, and 5. Where a horse refuses to come to the gate before the gates reaches the seven-eighths pole. In cases where horses do not come up |0 the gate together with the rest of the field or they break stride immediately at or right after the start, they must attend j special schooling sessions until such time ! the starter feels these horses are "safe" starters. Recalls are relatively infrequent. Last year only three recalls occurred during the entire Chicago racing season. Schooling sessions for young horses and those put on the starters and stewards lists are held three times weekly at May-wood and twice a week at Aurora Downs, where the overflow or horses coming to the River Road oval are stabled. Getting back to the starter himself, John Dale is a horseman in his own right with over 25 years experience in the show horse field and a reputed trainer of road horses. Shortly after the last conflict. Dale purchased his first automotive gate and later received his first mutuel track engagement at Batavia Downs in western New York. In addition, Dale was the offical starter at the Illinois Top Line Circuit, which offers the best stake program outside the Grand Circuit for harness horses at non-betting tracks. His craftsmanship soon gained additional recognition and in 1952 Chicago Downs availed themselves of his services. He also added the Fox Valley Trotting Club meeting at Maywood during the fall of 52. For 1953 John Dale is the official starter at all three harness meetings in the Chicago area. In Dales case, the starting gate is built to his specifications. As anyone can easily imagine, the problems with a starting gate is one of balancing the weight of the heavy wings at the rear and also one of giving the car enormous power of acceleration. For these reasons Dales car has a special motor of the aircraft type and overload springs designed to counteract the wing structure. Since the gate has to be operated over all kinds of surfaces, it also is equipped with mud grip tires that prevent sliding even on the most slippery track. This season Dale constructed a special wiring at the wings, which prevents the horses from seeing the ground and eliminates "fighting" the gate on the part of over-eager horses. Starting horses appears to run in the Dale family. For, son John R. "Bob" Dale also is an acocmplished official in this field. The younger Dale distinguished himself last year at the Grand Circuit meeting at Springfield for his handling of bulky fields of two-year-olds. Until the younger Dale takes over his duties at gate is used as a stand-by here at May-wood and for schooling purposes at Aurora Downs. Dale ascribes a good deal to his successful starts this season to the very cooperative drivers at Maywood Park, and it is significant that not one driver has been fined or suspended for a breach of the starting rules.
