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The Famous Horses in Horse Racing

The amount of betting on each race - the main source of revenue to the track and the state -- is believed by racetrack operators to be influenced by the number of horses in the race.

With fewer horses, the betting payoffs are lower, especially for 'place' and 'show'; the bettors are dissatisfied; they bet less; and track and state take in less revenue.

And so most racetracks insist on large fields; they will cancel a good race, with quality horses, if the field is small, and will substitute a claiming race with a larger number of horses.

For the same reason, they will cancel a claiming race at a long distance when it doesn't fill, and substitute a sprint race that will fill.

Thus at most tracks, the betting market - the handle - tends to determine the quality of the most races, and with distance horses and quality horses in short supply, and sprinters and claimers in long supply, the cheaper races predominate.

A trend is established that affects not only the horses active at the time, but the future generations being bred by owners and professional breeders.

Even in the U.S., classics are affected by this situation. U.S. racing was at one time at distances linger even than present French racing.

Salvator, the champion of 1889, raced up to four miles. The Arlington Classic, at a mile and a quarter until 1952, is today a mile.

The American Derby, once at a mile and a half, was reduced to a mile and a quarter in 1928, to a mile and three-sixteenths in 1951, and settled on a mile and an eighth in 1958.

These two races, both at Chicago tracks, were once the ranking classics after the Triple Crown (the Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes).

Marge Everett, the efficient manager-proprietor of the two Chicago tracks, was asked by Fortune why she did not make the American Derby a mile and five-eighths, that is, longer than the Belmont Stakes.

She replied candidly, 'It would be a match race.' And it indeed it might. Even the Belmont Stakes can seldom be won any longer by an American horse. Three of the last four winners were imported from Europe.

There are countertendencies in spots in the U.S. New York has a massive stakes program of high quality. Delaware has a pretty and specialized program of filly and mare stakes.

Eugene Mori's Garden State has the plutocratic mile-and-one-sixteenth autumn test for two-year-olds, which has brought together the best at this age.

Hollywood Park is valiantly sticking with its mile-and-five-eighths sunset Handicap. Laurel has a unique mile-and-a-half Washington, D.C., international race that has even attracted some Soviet horses.

These happen to be two-year-olds, speed horses, and, in general, horses of lower quality. And because they are in demand, their supply is most readily renewed.