CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20231, 15 February 1934, Page 12

CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM.

Conditions of Trotting Races Revised. The biennial congress of the National Trotting Association of the United States of America will, it is said, he asked to revise once more the system of classifying horses in harness races. For half a century this was done according to their fastest records alone. Then, for several years, it was only the fastest record made in a winning race that determined eligibility,' performances in losing races being ignored (states a New York journal). This new deal operated to rehabilitate a lot of horses that had become hopelessly outclassed, but in a few years there were again so many bankrupts—horses that could not win in their class—that the National Trotting Association, which is made up of track managers, each of whom is interested chiefly in getting as many entries as possible for his own races, decided once more to wipe out all existing handicaps and start anew by handicapping horses according to th 6 amount of money they had won, regardless of their records. One of the effects of this policy has been to make the best young trotters in training practically worthless for racing purposes after they are three years old. The result is strikinglyshown by the fact that of the eight winners of the 40,000-dollar (£8000) Hambletonian Stake none was ever entered in another race on any American trotting track. Three were sold for export to Europe, where they are now racing, and the other five were retired to the stud for breeding purposes. The large amount of money they had won in one race put them in a class for future racing where they could find no engagements because there would be so few horses to start against them that the track manager, who rplied almost wholly on entrance fees to finance his meetings, could do better by putting on a race for hoppled pacers that had never won more than 1000 dollars £2OO. Could anything in turf legislation be more short-sighted than to thus drive from American tracks at the end of their three-year-old form such stars as Guy M’Kinney, 1.583; Isola’s Worthy, 2.033; Spencer, 1.593; Walter Dear, 2.013; Hanover’s Bertha, 2.00; Calumet Butler, 2.021; The Marchioness, 1.591; and Mary Renolds, 2.033, as well as many others but little less famous ?