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WEIGHING IN By EVAN shipman SARATOGA, Saratoga Springs, N. Y., Aug. 26. John B. Campbell, secretary and handicapper for the Metropolitan racing associations, has just completed a proposed revision of the scale of weights. Campbells suggested new scale, together with the present scale that it may replace, has been issued on a mimeographed sheet and widely distributed among the countrys racing secretaries and turf writers to the end that they may forward their own suggestions to The Jockey Club. It is likely that The Jockey Club, at its next annual meeting in January, will move to adopt a new scale, and so, if racing officials and horsemen have strongly held ideas on this subject, it would be well to speak out now. Campbells revision follows the general belief that three-year-olds have been unduly favored. We all seem to be pretty well agreed on that point. The question, and ft is not an easy one, is: How much of an advantage do younger thoroughbreds enjoy? Campbells interesting table for 12 months has been printed in this newspaper, and we will content ourselves by speaking of it only in the most general terms. Most horsemen know that the scale of weights for thoroughbred racing was the invention of Admiral Rous, veritable dictator of the English Turf in the 1930s and 40s, and a great power for good, for all his harsh, domineering ways. We also know that the English scale was long ago adopted in this country, but beyond the circumstances of its origin, most horsemen, this columnist included, are decidedly vague. Over- the years, for instance, there have undoubtedly been slight advantages, but we are at a loss to tell you what these changes have been. AAA Weight-for-age races, always rare in this country, are the perfect expressions of the scale, .but allowances races Campbell Proposes Revision of Weight Scale Present Version Seems to Payor 3-Y.ear-Olds Thoroughbred Breeders Aim for Precocity Foreign Stakes Contradict American Evidence and handicaps, too, are based on the scale, the former departing from the scale as a norm on the basis of races or sums of money won, and the latter adding weight to scale or subtracting from it on the basis of -relative merit. An ideal way in which to judge the accuracy of the scale would be to take the history of several important weight-for-age races and see if, over a given period, one age group appeared to be favored at the expense of the other. The trouble with that is the scarcity of weight-for-age races. Here in America, we have the Saratoga Cup, the Sysonby Mile, the mile and three-sixteenths Pimlico Special, The Jockey Club Gold Cup, and the Empire Gold Cup. The oldest of these fixtures is the Saratoga Cup, an event that dates from 1865 but for which the present condiitons go back only to 1902. The two-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup, the most important race of its kind on the American racing calendar, dates under its present condition from 1921, the year in which Mad Hatter, a five-year-old, defeated therthree-year-olds, Gray Lad and Touch Me Not. The Sysonby, the Pimlico Special and the Empire Gold Cup are all three comparatively new stakes. A A A For the past six years without a single break, three-year-olds have scored in The Jockey Club Gold Cup, and they have won nine of the last 12 renewals of that fixture. Such a predominance cannot be accidental. The Gold Cup is raced in October, and the scale for. that month at two miles places three-year-olds at 117 pounds, while older horses must carry 124 pounds. According to Campbells revision, one pound would be added to the three-year-olds asked to travel two miles in October. For the Sysonby Mile, according to the actual scale, three-year-olds carry 118 pounds as against 126 for older horses. Campbell would raise the three-year-old assignment by two pounds, At present, there is no such thing as an American weight-for-age race at Europes most popular distance of a mile and a half. If we did possess such a race, and it has been frequently proposed, Campbell would urge a seven-pomad difference between three-year-olds and older horses in September and a five-pound difference in October. The present differential is eight and seven pounds. AAA Modern thoroughbred breeding concentrates on precocity. It would be strange if, after a full century of effort in that direction, we had not succeeded in producing a much more rapidly maturing animal than the early thoroughbred. The scale weight of 126 pounds has been carried in the Belmont Stakes since 1900, and in the Kentucky Derby since 1920. Before those dates, the weight carried in each of our three-year-old classics was considerbly less than the present scale. The trend has surely been toward a horse that attains full growth at a period when our fathers would still be speaking of them as "colts." This does not apply strictly to the scale, but as an example of the change we recall that horsemen of another generation used to speak of four ?,s a "bad year," and that it was once common practice to lay horses up during that season, the theory being that it represented an important transition between colthood and maturity, nature requiring complete repose. The scale of weights for steeplechase horses, who must carry much heavier Continued on Page Thirty-Nine WEIGHING IN By EVAN SHIPMAN Continued from Page Forty-Eight burdens than flat horses, recognizes that - full maturity is not reached until the sixth year, and rare have been- the occasions , when a fencer under that age has captured the Belmont Grand National, most important of our fixtures for that specialty. - A. A A. For a useful measure of the relative , maturity of three- and four-year-olds, we believe several foreign fixtures are more revealing than any American race. In France, the Arc de Triomphe for three-year-olds and up is contested in early .v October, and it is the most valuable race on the continent. Both the English and French scale of weights differ from" the American - scale, but not in respect to leniency toward three-year-olds. In the last 12 renewals t of the Arc de Triomphe, three-year-olds, carrying 122 poundsin France that season, have won exactly half a dozen times, the other victories going to older horses with 132 pounds in the saddle. Were this feature contested in America, three - year - olds would carry 119 pounds as against 126 for their elders. Getting back to our American scale, at first sight it would appear as if Campbells very slight changes could affect -, little difference, but Campbell must be impressed by the fact that, in Europe, older horses continue to hold their own in the most important weight-for-age stakes, and this in spite of being at a greater weight disadvantage in respect to their juniors than our horses. As we all know, it is the same breed. We believe that Campbell is perfectly correct in not recommending any great change, since it is possible that the testimony of American fixtures, suclr as The Jockey Club Gold Cup, is falsified by complicated conditions having to do with our native racing structure rather than biological changes that may have taken place in the thoroughbred.
