The Judges Stand, Daily Racing Form, 1943-06-24

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I THE JUDGES STAND By Charles Hatton Easts Golden Opportunities Brooklyn Is Massachusetts Preview Market Wises Number One Rooter Breezing to Post Unpopular NEW YORK, N. Y., June 23. The Brooklyn Handicap, it is obvious, will be of more than immediate or local interest. Its results will be eagerly awaited by Down East turf enthusiasts in general and handicapper Charles McLennan in particular, one imagines. For Aqueducts 0,000 Saturday stake promises to exert a pronounced influence on the personnel of the starting field for Suffolk Downs 0,000 Massachusetts Handicap, on the fifth of July. Virtually all of the "name" horses among the 35 nominees for Uncle Chuck Adams noteworthy contribution to the new turf season are on Long Island at the moment, pointing for the less valuable, more historic Brooklyn. These include Shut Out, Market Wise, Attention, Devil Diver, Mioland, Don Bingo, Apache and Vagrancy. In the lush pre-war days of Santa Anita Park it was quite possible for a thoroughbred to amass 00,000 in a single race. Several, indeed, did. The fabulous California gold rush, as some imaginative, sports editor nicknamed the Santa Anita Handicap, just now is undergoing an hiatus occasioned by the war. But it is conceivable some especially strong-backed horse might win approximately 00,000 in a brief space of 14 days in the effete East this summer. There is the 0,000 Brooklyn on the week-end, the 0,000 Massachusetts on July 5 and the 0,000 Butler five days later. Meditating on the above a moment, it occurs to us that if a Gallup Poll were conducted on that subject probably horsemen would prefer 10,000 in three fhfee stakes stakes than than 00,000 SiOO.OOO in in a a sinele single event. event. ThU This three fhfee stakes stakes than than 00,000 SiOO.OOO in in a a sinele single event. event. ThU This Charles Hatton is not intended to reprove the management of the exotic Los Angeles course, however. For Santa Anita Park surrounded its "hundred grander" with a really amazing roster of many other opulent stakes, including the 0,000 Santa Anita Derby and the 0,000 San Juan Capistrano Handicap. Lets be factual rather than sentimental, impulsive, hasty or harsh about Whirl-away. Possibly he will win several more coveted turf baubles. He has three opportunities at 0,000 handicaps within the next two months at Washington Park. But we wonder if plain Ben can predict Whirlaway will be in peak form on specific dates with the same confidence he did in 1942. Nothing within the memory of this graying, balding observer so clearly illustrates the importance of a thoroughbreds training and management as does the career of Warren Wrights purse-proud homebred. He came to the races a remarkably excitable, washy animal and his development involved both horse training and applied horse psychology. His metamorphosis into a colt of placid demeanor and the fact he managed to amass more than 00,000 without carrying such prodigious imposts as Discovery, for recent example, attests the skill of the Missourian who handles him, as well as his own ability. Vincentive and Famous Victory, so excitingly close at the end of the Dwyer, probably will settle the disputes that have evolved from their Aqueduct encounter in the 5,000 added Empire City Handicap of a mile and three-sixteenths July 3 at Jamaica. Each carried 110 pounds in the Dwyer. The Empire City is a handicap, so Jack Campbell finds himself in the unenviable position of having to project his opinion of their relative merits into the current discussion. Weight assignments are due Monday. George Washington Carroll, the wry little fellow who developed the story book horse, Market Wise, has no more avid rooter than is Colonel Bradley. The master of Idle Hour will be at Aqueduct on Saturday to see Market Wises Brooklyn performance. The capabilities of the Marise Farms cup horse are a point of pride with Colonel Ed, you know, for he bred Market Wises sire, Brokers Tip, perhaps taking a cue from the pedigree of Black Maria. It is questionable if any other race in recent seasons was quite so gratifying to the colonel as was Market Wises triumph in the 1942 Suburban Handicap, in which he encompassed the defeat of his arch rival, Whirlaway. There is another reason for the colonels interest in Maiket Wise. Carroll years ago rode for Idle Hour and there gleaned much of his conditioning of horsemanship. Market Wises rather spectacular progress from a 00 two-year-old into an authentic big "name" horse status is something of a triumph of Carrolls patience over natures whimsicality. Nature short-changed Market Wise in the matter of feet. Practitioners of the veterinary science have been clinical about Market Wises heart, too, but Carroll hoots at this and chuckles: "I hope its catching and every horse in the barn gets an acute attack of it." Whether the "Pride of Jamaica" can ultimately recover the form which made him a fearsome figure in handicap ranks is "on the knees of the gods," as Neil Newman would say. He has been on the anxious list, just as have Alsab and Whirlaway. If he never wins again, Market Wise has much intrinsic value at stud, where we should think he would exert a strengthening influence. " Most of The Judges mail begins with some such charming little salutation as: "You — xyz — you!" Printing it would be a liberal education for aspiring cavalry officers, but some stuffy old statute prohibits it. A good deal of the mail recently that is not a sheer, eloquent explosion of purple phraseology has to do with the post parades at New York tracks. The complaint is not that these are prolonged, as in some other areas, but that the horses are whisked by the stands too rapidly to afford bettors a good look at them. Evidently there are "two-dollar bettors" who know a sore horse when they see one and who understand the import of the various descriptions of bandages, bits, etc. At Belmont Park the fields are breezed almost furtively past the stand to. some distant starting point, then breezed behind the stands to unsaddle. It is as important, for future reference, to note how a horse pulls up as the post parade is of immediate concern. This policy is enforced, even though it represents costly delays in the "tote" departments functions. There is something pretty quixotic about arguments currently advanced in support of a crusade against the claiming race. One faction seems obsessed with a notion that to remove the claiming tags from horses somehow improves their quality. The claiming races are the best device as yet conceived for maintaining a semblance of public form among cheap thoroughbreds.


Persistent Link: https://drf.uky.edu/catalog/1940s/drf1943062401/drf1943062401_3_3
Local Identifier: drf1943062401_3_3
Library of Congress Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/unk82075800