Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-11-10


| land at all any more. They go 10 France
| instead, where they know that they can
| get fair play. They long ago found ont
that they could not get fair play in Eng
land. The English game of billiards IS a.
different from our game as base ball is a.r-
ferent from cricket In the face of this
our billiardists went to England. mas, ored
the English game. beat the best PLAYERS in
England out of hand at their own game.
and were then called sharpers aud crooks
for their pains. and virtually Gebarred
from further competition with English
bi!liardists.
Eject on PuEiiism.
ITO descend to one of the less sstt
mable yet trying sports. 1t is a welI-known
| fact among American men Interested in
pugilism that the reason why more OF the
American fighters of the first grade do
not go to England to do battle with pugi-
| lists over there is that they know they
| can't get fair play in England. On how
many occasions has a victorious American
pugflist received fair play in England from
| the day that John c. Heenan had to run
| for his life after thrashing Tom Savers?
| No successful British pugilist has ever re-
| ceived the worst of it at the hands Of an
American crowd at a ringside. and r!ngsiJa
| crowds are not to be taken as the best ele-
ments of our craftsmanship. either
! have seen the man Charles Mitchell re-
| peatedly foul American prize fighters in
| full view of American ringside crowds
| with nothing to follow except a reprirnanl
| or warning from the referee. An Ameri-
/ can pugtlist who should deliberately foul
an English antagonist in English arena
would need an airship to escape the rage
| of the ringside crowd.
| On the English Turf
"And now, to cap it all, the English are
| not going to play with US any more in
the racing game because we are thieves
| and blacklegs. L was too young to have
| been witness of the running of the Eng
| lish Derby in 1881 when Lorillard's fine
American horse, Iroquois. beat all of the
English cracks and won in canter, but
| my father and number of other men who
were present on that great occasion tell
me that the CONSERVATION and wrath OF
! the crowd when the horse from the states
galloped first under the wire were indie
scribable. The British turf writers shout
! ed fraud on that occasion, Just as they
| are shouting it now. l have had some lit
| tie connection with racing In England for
the last dozen years or so-in fact, have
! done some steepleChase riding over there
| and | ought to say here that | never won
a steeplechase event in England that I
| was not made to feel, by the chilly attitude
OF the crowd afterward. If [ had COM
mitted some almost capital crime.
We'll, l was about to say, If more
| gross or glazing bits of crooked work were
ever committed on the outlaw tracks Of
Maryland than I have committed at
various times on every race track in all
England. without any notice whatsoever OF
| them being taken by the turf authorities.
! I've never heard of them. Before the ad-
| vent of the American riders in England
| there was jockey ring in control of the
running of races on the British turf that
! the turf authorities absolutely power
| less to cope with-a ring that was for of
ard by the bookmakers. The American
| jockeys smashed this ring and that was The
| beginning of the tumult.
behind the Times.
''Of course. the pride of the English in
their horses and riders has been sorely hit
but that is no excuse for the extraordinary
attitude that has been assumed by the
British turf powers with respect TO Amer
lean horses and riders. If the English
TURTLES were not strapped and bound
and tied down by species Of conserva-
tism that IS simply asinine. they would gall
lantly come to the front and acknowledge
that even If they still preserved their faith
| in the superiority of their horses and riders
the Americans have the best methods OF
riding and training horses. There is
getting beyond the fact that English thor
oughbreds arc good animals. and that some
English riders having the 'makings' OF
good jockeys. But the English trainers are
fifty years or more behind the times and
English jockeys are suffering from arrested
development, and there Is the whole matter
in nut shell. That is the reason why
comparatively inferior American thorough
breds-for we haven't been sending top
notch American horses to the English races
during the past two or three seasons to
race the best animals in England into the
ground. Had we been sending our really
tfrst-rate horses to England during these
past few years the Jealousy and wrath OF
the English turfmen would probably have
exploded long ago.
A Case In Point.
Horse against horse, and including both
stake animals and selling platers the Amer
lean thoroughbred Is just as good as the
British thoroughbred: but the American
thoroughbred Is trained and handled inf
nttely better. To give an instance WISH
ard, the American trainer the running OF
whose horses has caused all of this wild
English talk about doping and electric
saddles and all that sort of moonshne-
Wishard. practical farr1er, concluded some
time ago. before he left America at all.
that the racing shoes of race horses were
too heavy. He experiments with aluminium
shoes and finds that they improve horses
speed and endurance enormously. So he
adopts them exclusively for horses he
trains. He makes no secret OF the matter
when he goes to England. and all of the
English trainers are fully aware of the fact
that the thoroughbreds trained by Wish
ard wear aluminium racing plates when
they race. Do they take the tip as the
saying goes, and fit their own horses out
with aluminium racing plates? No. They
continue to faSten shoes that weigh two
pounds each to the feet Of their horses,
and crowd about the way Wishard is TAX
instance. whereas l might name forty more
in which the hide-bound British trainers
cling to the practices of their remote prede-
cessors, to their disadvantage.
American Jockeys.
Then. the awful rumpus that has been
raised over the bewildering series of wins
of the American yockels. This lad Sloane
who is twenty-pound better jockey than
was the most notable Of British riders.
Fred Archer. in the latter's best days
long ago took leaf out Of the book of the
American Indian. He has head his
shoulders. and it struck him that the In
dian scheme of riding far forward in the
saddle. as to take all possible weight
off the horses headquarters, where thu
propelling power lies. and of bending the
body so as to offer the lease resistance to
the wind. was worth trying.
He did try 1t, and with his natural judg-
ment of pace and horsemanshp he quickly
became the greatest of American jockeys.
The American jockeys quickly perceived
the reasons for Sloan's success, and they
as quickly initiated his methods Of riding,
with the result that the best of them
| forged ahead right alongside the originator