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On the Trot L Br MOKRIE KURLANSKY — 1 Wagering, Patronage Records Set Excellent Sport Salient Reason Abundance of Horses a Problem MAYWOOD PARK, Maywood, 111., June 1. — Although there are still three nights of the current 44-night Fox Valley Trotting Club meeting here before the scene shifts to Sportsmans Park, all wagering and attendance records for a spring meet in the Chicago area have been topped. Most spectacular gain up to last Saturdays racing was registered in mutuel play, .which shows an increase of 28.4 per cent over the corresponding figures of last year for a nightly average of 68,010. The even more important fact is that the sulky sport has won a lot of new friends as the increase in attendance is 21.4 per cent for a nightly average of 5,317. Doubtlessly, this is due to the excellent sport presented here this season, with many of the nations top trotters and pacers participating in the lucrative stakes and overnight programs. Never before in the history of Chicago-land racing have there, been so many , miles in 2:05 as this year and on one night the average for the entire 9 -race card was better than this standard. The outstanding performance of the meeting was BHavens effort in the first heat of the recent ,500 Invitational Pace when he shattered Knox Hanovers track record to establish the fast mark of 2:01. What surprised veteran racegoers most, however, was the fine showing of two-and three-year-old pacers, what with Castle Harbor, an Ensign Hanover juvenile from Gene Biegles barn, crashing the 2:10 list, and half a dozen sophomores like Blue Goose, Bombers Delight, Darn Good Pick, Plutocrat, Selkas King and Easy Adios consistently beating 2:06, and defeating older opponents at the same time. The trotters, too, can take a bow for speedy performances. If it hadnt been for some interference at the start of last Saturdays trot handicap, Darn Safe most likely would have bettered Marcia D.s mark of 2 :04. The most vexing problem at this meeting, arid one that most likely will bother officials even more at Sportsmans Park, is the great number of-horses on hand. With the number of starters in overnight races restricted to eight, racing opportunities for the intermediate classes have become increasingly scarce and of late-from 60 • to 100 horses landed on the also-eligible list for any given racing night. Sometimes a trainer may enter asmany as eight or nine horses for a nights nine-race program and consider himself lucky if two of his charges draw in. - A few of the stables with not-better-than-average racing stock drew the logical consequence and shipped out to some of the smaller tracks in Ohio and Kentucky although this didnt alleviate the situation to any noticeable extent. A partial solution may be found in tightening the minimum time requirements, e. g., a horse has to trot or pace the mile in a certain time to become eligible for racing, especially older horses. Some people advocate claiming races to help the weeding-out process, which doesnt seem like a bad idea, although it is consistently resisted by a majority of horsemen. Just the other day, for example, the owner of a well-known 13-year-old pacer, who has won many a race here but isnt quite as sharp this season, was asked if he would put the veteran in a claiming race. The answer was an emphatic "No" and the reason for it, loyalty — as the horse has won so much money for his owner to have earned retirement on the farm after another season/ However, the attitude of many horsemen toward claiming races seems a bit incongruous if confronted with the fact that so "many horses are sold privately in the course of a meeting and every few weeks there is some auction, which, apart from tbpnotch performers, invariably offers racing jstock of all description. At the fall sale? in this state, Ohio and Kentucky, a man interested in assembling a stable of trotters and pacers virtually has a choice among hundreds of horses in training, and record performers, if he doesnt prefer to buy yearlings. We could name several dozen horses currently racing here that have changed barns not once, but twice and three times in the course of the last two seasons, but hardly one of then* owners was willing to enter them in a claiming race if there was one in the condition book at the time. This situation is not typical of Chicago ; it is the same in New York where • claiming races hardly fill. A little headway was made this spring at the Santa Anita meeting where a few fields raced via the claiming route, but there were few takers. One thing claiming races would do for the harness sport is sure — they would eliminate the constant beef of some owners and trainers that their horses are "in over their head" as they would have a chance then to classify their own stock.
