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Weighing In By Evan Shipman High Voltages Defeat Due to Over-Racing Foreign Trainers Treat Fillies Mote Kindly Thoroughbreds Carry Weight Trotters Dont AQUEDUCT, L. I., N. Y., June 28. With no finan- j cial responsibility, it is gross impertinence for us to presume to criticize the fashion in which owners and trainers campaign their good horses, and especially when the plan of campaign nets these combinations a lot of money-There is, however, something impertinent about any critisism directed from the sidelines, and that is a risk we ae just going to have to take. When we thought that Calumet was campaigning fine mares like Bewitch and Two Lea, it being to their own best interest and that of the farm that they be retired to the broodmare ranks, we said so bluntly. We also deplored the manner in which Alfred Vanderbilt raced Bed o Roses and Next Move, this pair kept in training long after they had established their class beyond the shadow of a doubt. For an identcial reason, we have frequently told you that Mrs. Whitakers Grecian Queen has already done all that a fine filly or mare should be asked to do, and that her proper place has long been the farm. All this brings us to the Wheatley Stables High Voltage, easily the best of last seasons juvenile fillies and already winner this year of the Acorn, the Coaching Club American Oaks, the Black-Eyed Susan and the Delaware Oaks. Yesterday, High Voltage, a superbly gifted gray daughter of . Ambiorix Dynamo, by Menow, could finish no better than third here in the mile and a sixteenth Gazelle Stakes, C. T. Chenerys Double Jay filly, Manotick, and Admiral Flanigans Two Stars leading her to the finish by a head and a neck, thanks to their seven-pound pull in the weights. Totally Different Plan of Campaigning Horsemen have long wondered why European fillies and mares can compete with colts and entire horses in the great English and French weight-for-age stakes and hold their own to an extent that is unheard of oh . this side of the Atlantic. The truth is that American fillies and mares no matter how good they seem to be must benefit by considerably more than the strict sex allowance if they are to engage colts and. entire horses. Pick out the best filly or mare that you can remember; apply this test, and we think you will be forced to agree with us. What is the reason for the discrepancey? Is it a question of breeding? Do our farms simply not produce individuals, that are up to the European standard? Such an explanation is really ridiculous, and the answer, we are convinced, lies in two totally different plans of campaigning, the one favoring feminine form, while the other militates against it. The reason behind the sex allowance in the first place is that the physical structure of fillies and mares is lighter than that of the male, while, with the thoroughbred race horse, weight is carried on the back. The importance of this difference in physique is immediately evident when we contrast the thoroughbred form with that of trotters and pacers. From the very beginning of the harness racing sport, fillies and mares have engaged colts and horses on terms of equality, while the worlds record for speed at the trot has been . held far more often by a mare than an entire horse or gelding. Actually, only one entire horse has ever "achieved the trotting crown, this being Croescus 2:02, while four geldings have maintained ther positions as the worlds fastest for varying periods Dexter 2:17, Uhlan 1:58, Peter Manning 1:56, and Greyhound l:55y4. Europeans kate Pedigree Oyer Money Recognizing that fillies must be accorded very different treatment than colts for fundamental physical seasons, European fillies of class are campaigned with extreme caution. Many of the best are not pointed for more than a half-dozen engagements during their two-and three-year-old form, while, if they succeed in these, they are automatically retired to the farm. The purpose of racing fillies, as it is conceived abroad, is to discover the- best individuals, and nothing more. The prizes, we admit, are substantiaWor such stakes as the English One Thousand Guineas and Epsom Oaks, and the French de Diane and Prix Vermeille, but we do not believe we are exaggertaing an attitude when we state that, to most foreign owners, the prize money is incidental to the essential purpose of establishing form to enhance future pedigrees. Occasionally, very occasionally, one of these lightly campaigned fillies reveals extrardinary class, and she is then pitted against her male contemporaries. We saw the Belfonds filly, Commanderie, capture the Grand Prix de Paris, and, in 1931, we saw the great Pearl Cap defeat a wonderful field of colts and aged horses in the Prix de lArc de Triomphe, Marcel Bous-sacs Corrida, maybe the equal of Pearl Cap, came along after we had left the French turf, but this one scored in the Arc de Triomphe, not only once, but twice. All of them, however, were trained with a few important objectives in mind, nor were they ever subjected to anything remotely resembling week-by-week racing. The latter is a relic of Americas days of the "gyp horsemen," when you had to get it picking it up here and there in pennies and dimes while the getting was good. A few old race mares who have the temperaments and the physiques of geldings will bear up under this kind of treatment, but it is not for stake fillies.
