Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-17
TALK OF THE
.' HARNESS HORSE MEN

me horses mentioned are either sons OF
daughters of the premier sire Of the estab-
llshment-kfnster. Mr.. Waters reports that
his stock have wintered finely and that he
hopes to be out during the coming racing
season with another Kinster and another
kinslee. Mr.. Waters expects to give the
sorrel stallion Kinslee, which was the SEN
sation last summer on the Maryland cir
cult mark of 215 or better.
Mr.. Frank Combs of I1eonardtown Nd
also writes The Star that the ST. Mary's
Racing Association will give two meetings
during the summer of 1907 the first meeting
being held about the middle of August and
the second one on or about October Is. Mr.
Combs reports that his youngsters by Don
Cozine, 30, are looking finely and that
there Is every reason to believe that the
fast son of Gambetta Wilkes is destined to
become the greatest sire ever owned in St.
Mary s. Mr.. Combs grandfather was a
noted breeder of thoroughbreds and was a
contemporary of the celebrated Col john
Ston of Petersburg, Va, and Ogle Tayloe of
Washington. Mr.. Combs turns his entire
attention to the breeding of light harness
borses, and his large and beautiful planta-
t!oA on the bay below Leonardtown is we'll
adapted for the business and is everywhere
known as the seat of hospitality.
Mr. Combs also reports that the horsemen
OF La Plata. Charles county. contemplate
breaking ground in the spring for a half
mile track. and that it is hoped by those in
terested to hold meeting in the summer
and fall. the dates following those claimed
by Leonardtown. Charles S. Early of
Brandywine, Prince George county who
was in the city during the week and who
had just returned from a trip through ST.
Mary and Charles counties says that
light harness interest was never quite so
keen as at present.
The Star, as far as these columns are
concerned. has long since gone on record
as being opposed to the use of hobbies At
the recent meeting of the directors of the
American Register Trstting Association in
chicago 1t was the Sense of the meeting
that it was unwse to classify hobbled
horses on the same basis as record taken
WITHOUT them. These views were afterward
IN a resolution that after 1907
recoids made by either trotters or PAGERS
wearing hobbies ought not to be recog-
nlZed for registration purposes or CLASH
ned IN the Year Book with those not made.
The resolution Will be formally voted on at
the annual meeting 10 be held in February,
l9oS.s Doubtless it will at that time be en-
forced as rule, and nominators will be re-
CURED, when entering horses, to specify
whether or not, they wear hobbies and sec
ret2ries viii be required to name in their
oiiictal reports all horses competing that
wear them
for some weeks past a lively dis
CGssion has been waged- in the horse
journals of the country on the subject OF
mobiles. the veteran John Splan opening
the debate with the claim thai a driver
who holds the reins over hobbled horses is
forever after spoiled for driving trotters
or other horses which do not need the
straps 10 keep them on their gait, on the
plea that the hands of a driver of a hob
blei horse are spoiled for handling an ami
maj that does not need them Splan's other
plea, that hobbies are destroying the values
OF horses, is an old but valid one. Never
theless the hobbled horse will continue to
be in evidence until track managers them
selves take the bull by the horns and abso-
lutelY refuse to allow a hobbled horse to
start over their tracks. When that time
arrives the millennium will be due the sky
will fall and We shall all be able to catch
plenty of larks.
The Tennessee and Arkansas legislatures
gave knockout blows to the race horse