AMERICA'S BEST

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 48, 26 February 1938, Page 22

AMERICA'S BEST

GREYHOUND ENTHRONED

It has become the custom, with the -close of every season, for the "Horse of the Year" to be chosen by the critics and selectors most prominent in the American thoroughbred world. Some of these judges are self-appointed. Others are asked to act, either singly or by means of balloting, by editors of various Turf journals. Their task is to name the one horse, of any age or sex, which stood out above all others as the season's champion. There was little doubt, before the selections were*- announced, says the "Harness Horse," that the honour would be awarded either the three-year-old colt War Admiral or the four-year-old colt Seabiscuit.

The former went through the season unbeaten, winning every one of the eight races in which he took part. They included the "triple crown" of Kentucky Derby and Preakness and Belmont Stakes, the three most important and valuable fixed events of the calendar for three-year-olds. He ran in record-breaking time, and on almost every occasion made the opposition look like the proverbial hacks. As for Seabiscuit, though not unbeaten, as he lost four of the fifteen races in which he participated, while in one of the others he did not score a clean win but ran a dead heat, he was the conceded champion of the handicap division, and his winnings, 168,080 dollars, were the largest credited to a thoroughbred of any age or sex in 1937, either here or abroad. Until the very close of their campaigns it was uncertain whether he or War Admiral would take that honour, but the Admiral retired with a score of 166,500 dollars.

Opinion was divided, as many of the "talent" favoured Seabiscuit. "Horse and Horseman" took a poll of 25 Turf men which favoured him. But in both the polls conducted, one by "Daily Racing Form," the other by the "Turf and Sport Digest," the award was to War Admiral by a decided majority. • But by far the most interesting and unique feature of the whole affair was the vote cast by one of the most distinguished men in the whole thoroughbred contingent, who made no secret of his selection.

This was no less a man than Algernon Daingerfield, who has for many years been the acting secretary of The Jockey Club of New York, the most eminent body of thoroughbred turfmen in America ever since its organisation nearly 45 years ago. The titular secretary of The Jockey Club is in effect an honorary officer—the real official is the assistant, or actin"secretary, and that position Mr Daingerfield has held for generations, discharging its duties (which are manifold and onerous) with an ability that has won him a high and enduring reputation. But when Mr. Daingerfield as was inevitable, was asked to cast his vote for the Horse of the Year he selected neither War Admiral nor Seabiscuit. The steed of his choice was none other than the new world's champion trotter.

GREYHOUND, lmin 56sec.

The sensation which this produced may be imagined.' But Mr. Daingerfield stood by his guns when placed under fire for what he had done: As between War Admiral and Seabiscuit," said he, "I would have to vote for War Admiral. But neither of them, speaking critically, was so great a horse as Greyhound. It is to him that the title belongs. He is emphatically, the one great Horse' of the Year."

It may be affirmed that never before has any trotting champion received so [high a compliment. When we consider, first, that War Admiral and Seabiscuit are admitted to be two of the best thoroughbreds seen in America, not only in 1937, but since the days of Man-o'-War (who, by the way, is the sire of War Admiral and the grandsire of Seabiscuit) almost 20 years ago; and, secondly, that Mr. Daingerfield has an intimate first-hand knowledge of all the best thoroughbreds for half a century past, the verdict he has given becomes doubly impressive.

llt cannot be discounted.. It is one that should afford not .only Mr. E. J. Baker, the owner of the grej* gelding, his breeder, Mr. Henry Knight, and his trainer and driver, S. F. Palm, the keenest gratification—it is a compliment which the entire trotting horse world cannot but regard in a similar imanner.

, Mr.Daingcrfield is not only a famous man in his own right. He is the son of one still more famous, the late Major Foxhall Daingerfield, in former years the manager of the Castleton Stud when it was producing, year after year,,

bred racehorses, and sires and dams of them, that ever came from one establishment. He is also the brother of Miss Elizabeth Daingerfield, of Haylands Farm, Lexington,' Kentucky, whose renown as a breeder and manager of great thoroughbreds far excels that of any other woman, in America or abroad. . His fitness to make a true appraisal is farther, attested by the fact that his father, Major Daingerfield. before becoming so celebrated as the manager of Castleton and the real breeder of the many great horses produced there, was a breeder of trotters and the o\vner of numerous noted ones of the oldtime high-wheel days. Algernon Daingerfield was. so to speak, brought up among the trotters (as were many other men later famous for their success on the thoroughbred Turf).

The average modern' thoroughbred horseman, however, I regret to state, not only takes no interest whatever in them and knows nothing at all about them; he is oftener than not hostile to them, never speaks of them except with derision, or loses a chance to "give them the worst of it." There has been a great change in that regard from former times, when many of the great breeders bred both thoroughbreds and trotters and were deeply interested in each breed; while others of those who did not were avowed adrjrvipe**s of-d-he tr.otter. jfittafftselxes wpjkiiyg^j^