The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-04-16
To-day,S Sports
 Pur1de
By HENRY McLEMORE United Press Stan Correspondent

New York, April l6.-UP)- Beat i'm; bust i'm wId dat whip! Hit i'm over the head with club! Come on, come on, you bum!"
 The speaker was one of the 12,000 lovers of king horse who packed the Jamaica course yesterday for the opening of the Metropolitan racing season. He stood on the lawn near the rail, resplendent in a butterfly waisted, blue gabardine suit, patent leather shoes, Derby, and cream spats. His tribute to the thorough bred was occasioned by the fact that the horse he had his money on, after leading from the barrier, had begun to lose ground in the run down the stretch. He had forgot ten, for a moment, that he was at she track, not to make money, but to improve the breed.
 At least, that's what racing off, cials would have us believe men and women go to the track for. They call 1t the sport of kings, and paint a picture of beautiful horses and brilliant silks, against backdrop of bluegrass. lovely ladies, mellow tradition, and sporting gentlemen. One look at the lawn and betting ring at Jamaica Cor Belmont Arlington, Churchill Downs and Hialeah, for that natter gives the l lie to that canvas, couldn't help wondering yesterday, as I showed and pushed my way about Jamaica, what one of the beautifully bred horses, with heritage that went proudly back through the years, thought when he looked over that crowd, with It's Gurging majority Of buns, tramps, cni8elers, wise guys, and no-goods Honestly, I could al- most hear him muse:
 "The sport of kings, eh? That makes that bunch royalty. eh? What a sweet looking bunch of princes and princesses!"
 This observer has seen all the types of sports crowds in his years in the newspaper business, but the racing crowd is the sorriest of the lot. Yes, worse than the fight crowd, and that's gaying something. The race crowd is the shabbiest in dress, and the shabbiest in behavior. Walk through race crowd and try to find a smile, hear laugh. You won't You won't find any of the gaiety, the lightness, that seems to grip people when they get together in thousands at all other forms Of sport. Racing crowds are hard-eyed. tight-lippcd. They're not out for fun. They're out for business. In any crowd save race one, you'll hear a good word for the loser or losers. Around the track the loser is always bum" had a bum" riding him, and Is a no good bum" who ought to be shot.
 It wasn't until yesterday that noticed how little the actual race meant to racetrack customers. Half of them don't even look at the track when a race is being run, but spend their time studying form sheets, thumbing over money, and just sit- ting down looking into space with stupid, empty expressions. The numbers on the board are all they care about. They'd go out to tracks just as readily to see goats, cats, or COVE raced. The horses mean noth- ing to them. And yet race officials continue to go about spewing the blathcr about racing being con- ducted for the improvement of the breed.
 It would be much more sensible to forget about improving the horse, and set about improving the breed of the people who populate the tracks.
 Copyright 1036 by the United Press)