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BETWEEN RACES By Oscar Otisl HOLLYWOOD PARK, Inglewood, Calif., June 3. This column deals with a few human-horse interest vignettes of current western racing ana nere they are. Item one concerns the pride of Bill and Ruth Black of La Jolla Farms in the normal development of twin colts, the brothers being a bay and a brown by Atavistic from the Heelfly mare, Nita Fly-As the TRA statistics have indicated, twins are by no means, a rarity, but with almost no exceptions, one twin turns out to be a runt, if it lives at all, while the other seldom amounts to much on the race track. But Bob Roberts, trainer for La Jolla, tells us that he has had vets in by the score to inspect the brothers, that both are full-sized and normal in every respect, are developing as well or even better than most individual foals. A A A The mares milk is supplemented each day by a gallon of cows milk, but although less than three months old, the foals are grazing and are beginning to take on some oats. Both Black and Roberts believe the foals have a real chance to continue to develop as normal horses, and if so, this would indeed, be a racing rarity. "Weve had lots of people come to the ranch to see them," says Roberts, "and have hundreds I of names suggested. We applied for One and One A to The Jockey Club, but these were turned down. Maybe we or one of your readers can come up with something apt and at the same time acceptable." AAA Oscar Levy of the American Tote Company has departed for Baltimore after an extended stay at Hollywood Park. He tells us that, wrack their scientific brains as they may, they cant come up with the one ingredient needed to make their tickets absolutely counterfeit proof, at least to the casual eye of the pari-mutuel cashier. Its just a matter of ink," explains Levy, "and we have been experimenting for more than two years with an all-purpose ink. It must dry instantly, otherwise the ink would rub off on peoples clothes and purses. But to have a non-smear, fast-drying ink, one must sacrifice something in the way of penetration into the ticket, which is one of the keys toward preventing counterfeiting. No one ink we have as yet heard of has everything." Racing Rarity-Twin Foals Normal Tote Co. Seeking All Purpose Ink Holly park Ousts Old Ringer Man It any inventive reader can solve this problem, he will have something, as the saying goes. Incidentally, the tote is going into the Nebraska fairs this summer, and equipment is such now that most any place, no matter how small, which wants it can have it. More equipment is on order to provide for date overlaps in given areas. Meanwhile, counterfeiting has been reduced to an absolute minimum. We had always thought that the crime of counterfeiting was concerned only with money, but Levy says a tote ticket is a negotiable instrument, sort of like a check, and thus comes under basic laws of either counterfeiting or forgery. AAA Happily for American racing, as Spencer Drayton of the TRA and TRPB only recently pointed out, the ringer is no longer a problem. But an unusual throwback to the days of the ringers occurred here the other day when Art Ryan, a TRPB man gifted with a photographic memory for faces, spotted a gent in the clubhouse who had been ruled off in Maryland long, long ago, in 1931, to be exact, for having had a part in the Shem-Aknahton substitution. iRyan had spotted the man from a rogues gallery photo. Although he had never seen him personally, he was certain in his identification of the unwanted character, and escorted him first to the TRPB offices, then to the outside gate where he was told not to return. I AAA Maybe this seems like holding a grudge against a man for a long time, but when the old ringer experts record was looked up, it included a list of arrests and convictions a "mile long." Anyway, Ryans memory has astonished all local law enforcement bureaus, including the FBI, for the heave-ho of the ringer man followed a fantastic series of "apprehensions of undesirables and identification of which was made solely on Ryans ability to never forget a face from a picture. AAA Ray Priddy has introduced to California racing its first true push button horse farm. True, the Priddy ranch is but two and one-half acres, and is located in swank Rancho Santa Anita near Arcadia, an area which is zoned to permit estate owners to keep up to five horses, the majority in the area being the saddle variety. Priddy has one mare on the ranch, which is divided into neat paddocks. Now the push buttons. One turns on the automatic sprinklers over the entire pasture. Another will fog the two stall barns for flies and other pests. Still another will light the entire area. And still another button will fill the feed and water buckets of the horses. Still another gadget will permit liquid fertilizer to be infused into the water sprinkling system. AAA Practically everything on this model ranch is either mechanized or electronically operated. Moreover, the buttons all are on the back porch of the family residence, and the farm can be operated almost 100 per cent from an easy chair at the home. It isnt that Priddy is lazy, he isnt, but rather that he is an active trainer and must devote most of his time to his stock at the California tracks. The wife or his 18-year-old son can operate this small, but nevertheless perfectly appointed farm with a minimum of physical effort. It is something new in a" horse farm, even for California, which has many farms with unusualbut nevertheless sound methods of operation. AAA It is news, we suppose, when the influence of The Jockey Club and its executive secretary, Marshall Cassidy, permeates the sagebrush section of the great Southwest, but that has transpired, and may serve to provide for the greatest upgrading in the quarter horse sport since the founding of the American Quarter Horse Running Association. The AQHRA codified and clarified wie status qi tne competitive quarter norse as distinguished from his brothers, the show quarter horse and the actual worker on the ranch and range. In any event, Ed Burke, a racing secretary and steward on the bigger short horse tracks of the Southwest, including the Santa Anita of the quarter horse world, Los Alamitos down near Long Beach, is currently in New York taking the full schooling in Cassidys educational institution for racing officials. Burke, and his-track sponsors, feel that the lessons he learns in New York well may be either applied directly, or adapted, to good use on quarter horse tracks. While Cassidy is essentially a thoroughbred man, he is not unaware of the popularity of quarter horse racing in the Far West. He felt that if The Jockey Club could be of service to any part of the horse family, it would be effort and time well expended. The moral of this item is that at long last, the dignity of New York will be transferred, at least in part, to the cow country.
