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TANBARK'5 andtekTURE*BY ROBERT B. PHILLIPS. JR.ANY ONE who has the habit of entering sports arenas through the pass gate also suffers from an irresistible desire to find handwriting somewhere on the wall. While other people are enjoying them-' selves placidly or hysterically in the presence of two box fighters or six race horses, the boys in the press box peer anxiously into the void, seeking to1 descry something significant. It makes them very unhappy to admit that they are spending a whole afternoon or evening looking at a mere horse race or 10 rounds of modified murder. They prefer to dream of championship contenders,' blood lines, trends and other mystic miscellanea.All this priming is intended to warn you that we also have been gripped by a bad case of the “whatdoesitmean this week. The first symptom set in week before Jast at Mlddleburg, where only six horses went to the poet in two rather famous timber races. That seemed a lamentably small representation. but it was apparent that several owners might be holding offuntil the second day to eend their i horses forth. They were not. On : Wednesday there were only five start-* ers In two races, and of these three were repeaters. The two novitiates fell at the same fence and that settled them.► When the second array of small 1 fields made a moderate travesty of the timber portion of Middleburg’s card, we could not help reflecting that racing over post and rail fences must 1 be in rapid decline in this section. Checking over the charts of past season, we find as many as 14 different horses starting in timber events at Mlddleburg in one day. This year six was the peak. The brush tests, on the other hand, filled very well, much betta- than in previous years.TT IS no secret that this tendency away from timber and toward brush has been flourishing since the Pall of 1934; when William du Pont, jr., opened his Fair Hills course, Rolling Rock inaugurated an equally interesting brush layout and the Virginia Gold Cup Association began laying its plans for a new plafit. The idea has caught on like wildfire. Wise trainers have been insisting for some time that it was suicidal to run horses over relentless wooden obstacles at the speed that was becoming inevitable in timber races. The minute they were given an opportunity to shoot at good brush courses, they switched.Running at a 2-minut« clip (and as early as 1931 that was considered moderate for timber toppers) a horse is bound to give his legs a terrific beating if he raps solid fences. Furthermore, if he makes even a slight mistake he is fairly sure to take a rattling fall. Neither is exactly a help to his future usefulness.There is, consequently, a splendid chance that timber racing will return to Its proper status—as a test of real hunters. People have been buying race horses, getting them qualified by rather doubtful hunting exploits (with grooms or jockeys in the saddle) and then running them over posts and rails. It was a silly business to begin with, and one induced only by misguided competitive spirit When the stake horses started running at hunt meets, the real serviceable hunters withdrew. In recent years they have been diverting themselves in point to point meets and elsewhere. We predict that within the next year or two they will be seen at hunt races rigidly limited to horses that have been hunted by their owners and are ridden across country by real hunting people. We say this knowing already of one hunt in nearby Virginia that plans precisely that sort of meeting In the Spring of 1936. Within another four or five years probably the present timber races either will have been abandoned, or their conditions changed to keep out the race horses that merely are disguised as hunters. Those horses wUl be running over brush, as they do in England and Ireland, and that kind of steeplechasing will be daily more important in the thoroughbred racing annals of this country. The cnly survivors in the free-for-all timber field probably will be the great and historic cup events, the Maryland, the Meadowbrook, the New Jersey, the Carolina, the Mlddleburg and the Virginia Gold Cup. People are going to continue buying expensive horses and sending them after those trophies simply because they have such potent traditional and sentimental value. There is not a hunting man or woman in America who hasn't dreamed of owning the winner of one or all of those pieces of silver, and that dream will keep them alive. The minor umber races, however, have no such bulwark. and they are doomed, not necessarily to oblivion, but to return to their proper usage.C PEAKING of the timber horses.Indigo will go to the Maryland this year as we had hoped. Charlie Hicks, his trainer, said he wanted to send the old boy to win the Virginia Gold Cup again, but Owner Johnnie Schiff has also been lured by the siren song of Worthington Valley. Last Spring, Hicks thought they would have to retire Indigo at the close of the season, because of his legs. We asked about the underpinnings this week an dthe little trainer rapped sharply on some nearby stone steps. “His legs are just like that,” he said. Trust he's right, for we’ve gone completely overboard on this son of Stefan the Great.He is an amusing cuss, too. In the two-horse race Wednesday he was pulling Charlie White like a steam engine going over the first four fences. As they turned to cross the far hill of Glenwood, Indigo was about 15 lengths ahead of Sun Faun. Seeing and hearing no opposition near at hand, the grey horse dropped down almost to a walk. White was kicking him, but he wouldn’t run. Andy Fowler on Sun Faun thought something must have happened to Indigo (And a lot of people in the stands who had taken the l-to-10 price offered by the bookies were thinking the same thing.) He rushed Sun Faun forward. The moment Indigo heard those galloping hooves scudding along behind him he Jumped forward, with a great burst of speed, and in a second was tearing along again, tugging at the bit for all he was worth. Fowler managed to keep Sun Faun within striking distance after that, but there never was any doubt who was going to go home with the R. Penn Smith Challenge Plate.$1.10 GENERJif purchased beforeGOOD FOR RE!iG. W. U.-Nop FOOTBA1THANKSGIVH(Central iOn Sale t G. W. U. Tieke
Newspaper Details
Evening Star
Washington, Washington-DC, US
Mon, Nov 25, 1935
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
National G.
USA 26 Dec 2024
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