The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-17
Purse On Race Is Nothing To Irish Or To Sinclair
By WEsTBRooK PEGLER (Leased Wire in Are-Herald.


 | NEW YORK, Oct 1G.-In tune with tho baseball business and the boxing business, which have been bigger and louder and more expensive this year than ever before, the horse rac- ing business will run off it's own world series at Belmont park Satur- day afternoon.
 Most of the men who own the rac- ing stables in England and the United States are millionaires. and most of those who aren't pretend to be. Therefore, the purse of S100,O00 for Saturdays international race betwee.l Papyrus, champion colt of the British three-year- -olds, and Zev, champion colt of the three-year- old class in the United States, was not offered to attract the attention of the horse owners themselves.
 Ben Irish, who owns Papyrus. is a. farmer in England, but, as one of his hostlers said, .he evening that i Papyrus came floating up New York bay in his pneumatic padded cell Cn the afterdeck of the Aquitania, "Mr. Irish. 'ee's don't do no work; ee's what you'd call man of means; q jempman farmer"
 Certainly it did not take a purse l of S10O,000 to enlist Harry Sinclair, the oil millionaire, and owner of Zev, for this race. One hundred I thousand is just a fraction of the money that he once Offered to toss into the broSd Atlantic from the beach at Coney Island In a sporting | def to the baseball magnates when Sinclair was backing the Federal league, now long and profitably de- funct.
 Sinclair Defies Magnates
 When his sporting gameness was publicly doubted by some of the wealthier packers of organized base ball, Sinclair said he would stand with his toes in the surf and fling dollar fer dollar into the sea with any or all of them until the last man cried quits.
 However, the horse racing business is supported by the customers who pay their s3.3O and up at the turn stiles, even as> the baseball and the boxing trades. And in order to make the international match race sound big to the customers it was decided to hang up a big purse. | This is to be divided $S0,o0e to the owner of the winning horse and 1 $20,000 to the owner of the loser. Neither owner will be compelled to accept the money, but both are demo- cratic and probably will not embar- rass the jockey club by resisting when the checks are forced into their pockets.
 The tag stOO,Ooo has made this horse race one Lf the great noisy financial events of the sporting year. If the purse were s175 it might be pointed out that Zev isn't the undisputed champion of the American turf nor Papyrus the un- Frivalled best in Europe. Zev was beaten in the Preakness last spring and ran out of a chal- 1 lenge for a match race with Ad- miral Cary Grayson's colt, My Own, for the right to face against Papyrus. In Europe it is held that French horse by the succulent name of Spin ach, known as Epinard in his own | language, might prove to be as swift point to another.
 Neither Is Greatest.
 Neither of the nominees for the match race is rated as the equal of the great Man O'War, who simply strolled away from Sir Barton in the i last great match race in America, and retired to rural domesticity in Ken lucky after his three-year- -old season. | However, they are fine items of horse-flesh, and the pulses of the Raggedy Rail-Birds hanging around | the race tracks inevitably quick en when such animals go mincing by 1 in their quarter-blankets and goggle- 1 eyed hoods on casual errands about racing reservation.
 Papyrus is almost black, and Zev | is the color of a cordovan shoe and, unlike last years American three 1 xra M0rNlch have the beautiful lines of the finely bred and tenderly trained racing animal
 Norwich was shaped like a cross between giraffe and a dromedary, l with just a suggestion of stork. But 1 he could run and that was his mis- l sion.
 Once the rich sportsmen got into l the sorbid business of racing for | mere money, they found it very diff ficult to keep their negotiations free from savor of prizefight methods. Irish became. skittish, and demanded | that Papyrus be allowed to bring his own oats. water and riding whip. It was given out that Papyrus had to have his growler of beer before ev- cry race. He had to have his pneuma- 1 tic stall in which to cross the agitated Atlantic.
 All these difficulties were solved at great expense in cable tolls, and | iPapyfuS arflNeus aullu almost as | much excitement as David Lloyd George was to create a short time later. He received much more tender 1 individual attention than Lloyd George-much more tender attention perhaps than some wounded soldiers received in the rush decentralization. Now Stevey Donoghue, the jockey l for Papyrus, has arrived from Britain, | 1 attended hy his man-servant: and Earl Sar who is to ride Zev, is | aflame modification. Sande has | no valet jockeys are little men, l barely or ghing a pound of feath- 1 | CTS. it mas ways seemed ludicrous l Igto Sands th a jockey should have an aDle-bodie man to lay out his | l pants and shoes in the morning and | | Stick the battons in his shirt. I However. f. Donoghue means any , thinfr lhsfht. uature of a challenge by | 1 lbringlag a valet, then Sande will meet | I him. valet fer valet if he has to hire | an army of personal flunkies. ! No Nnglshnan can out-valet me. | was Sandes defi.
 | cure with his iron-bound, seven-year contract and his cushy salary would |