ENGLISH RACING

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20526, 9 April 1941, Page 12

ENGLISH RACING

QUIET OPENING DIFFICULT TIMES LONDON, March 25. Tlie flat-racing season opening with Hie Lincoln meeting will be made shyly, diffidently, in an atmosphere ol' controversy. Many of the more famous course: arc unavailable, for a variety of reasons. There will be none of the pleasant jaunts to the seaside courses like Brighton, Yarmouth. There will be no Ascot, Goodwood, Epsom. Racing will not take place around London, the nearest meeting. Newbury. being 60 miles from the city. There the substitute Derby and Oaks nay be run in June. the subdued note of the 1941 racing season is illustrated by the first week’s programme. There will not be a Grand National, and the Lincolnshire field is below standard. Usually there are- at least 30 runners. This yeui there are 20. A few top-class horses are headed by Quartier Maitre. with J.LI last year’s winner who was ridden by G. Richards.

The season opens in an atmosphere of controversy. Racing's opponent: suggest that racing is out of place in wartime; also the maintenance cl racehorses consumes feed, valuable to poultry, cattle, and sheep, quoting figures purporting to prove how much lure human lood would be available if racing stopped: Reasons for Continuance

Lord Harewood, in a letter to The times defines the maintenance of the English thoroughbreds’ supremacy and racing’s entertainment value as reasons for racing's continuance. He

elds: “those interested in racing are .of pressed into indulgence of their .obby when it conflicts with the .national interests. The Jockey Club stewards are in close touch with the fiovernment departments. There is :o difficulty in carrying out what is conceived to be their duty without overstepping the bounds imposed by .he Government. They wiii continue to je guided by Cabinet’s wishes. Cabinet seems the only body with a full knowledge of all the facts.”

There may be a compromise between conflicting views when the number oi racehorses is drastically reduced. vVlieu the steeplchasers and hurdlers ,o out oi training it is doubtful whether .here would be more than 1000 available. The fixture list has been evorely pruned. There will not tu any special trains to the courses, and road transport will be brought to a minimum.

Meanwhile, humour has been introduced into the controversy by a cor- . c.-pendent in tile Daily Telegraph. ’Why pick on racehorses tor an attack,” he writes. “How about the much greater number of hacks and nunters? How about 4.000,000 dogs ana jilts which consume at least 30 times as much food as racehorses and have .title value except to their owners. As a fact our 50,000,000 rats destroy or consume immensely more lood than norses, cats, and dogs together, -vuachs have hitherto been directed :o!cly against racehorses, and the supporting figures are so misleading mat one assumes the attackers are more concerned at the heaven-sent opportunity lor a Hank attack on racing than food saving.”