FIELD AND ATHLETIC SPORTS IN AMERICA.

Evening Star, Issue 3690, 19 December 1874, Page 2 (Supplement)

FIELD AND ATHLETIC SPORTS IN AMERICA.

{New York Correspondent of the Argus ) The progress in. our country of healthy field and athletic sports was never more rapid than this year. Our racing has been more frequent and better than heretofore. The principal interest has centred in trotting, which i® American, ptiblic what running is to your own, ;and for a very similar reason. Nearly as large a pro portion of gentlemen here own and drive their own horses as with you, and ride them. Our huge cities are sure to have one or more public roads and private tracks especially laid out, not for stated races so much as for casual trials of speed by private horses. In this way an extensive market for tiotters is made, aud breeders constantly strive to outstrip each other. A. trotting horse must be carefully kept, and cannot with safety be speeded much, not even enough to test Ins real powers, before he is in his fourth year, aud then he requires at least a year of skilful training to develop his staying powers, his speed, and his tempers the latter being far more important in trotting than in running. J3ut once in the harness and well trained, such a horse, if he can “ make ” a mile in 2.37, will bring without difficulty l,ooodol. or 1,200d01., and second that can be knocked off his time adds largely to his value. The re are numerous horses now in private ownership here which have never trotted for money and never will, who have changed hands at from 2,000d01. to 5,000d01., while our crack horses have brought as high as 48,000d01. I mention these facts as the most con venient way of indicating the amount .of interest that is felt in this sport. This year has been notable not only for soroue brilliant con- | test's between our gre (at flutters, but

also for one contest against time, which is reported to have resulted in the unprecedented speed of a mile in 2min. 14|sec. This was attributed to a mare some sixteen years old, known as “ Goldsmith Maid,” and I am bound to say I think it a little doubtful. The same mare, however, is to trot next week on a track at Buffalo, wellknown, and under the supervision of a reputable association, for 2,000 dollars against time. ißhe will, if she does well, be then the taken from turf and for used breeding. Running races grow every year in favor, and there is a slight flavor of aristocracy about them which gives them a certain advantage over the trotting contests. Still they are attractive solely as spectacles, and as occasions for betting. Not one man in a thousand who visits them knows any more about the distinctive merits of a horse under the saddle than he does about those of a trained monkey or an educated mouse. No one rides in our country, or so nearly no one that the statement is no exaggeration in this connection. Least of all does any one ride across country, and there is no element of personal interest in the jrrocess by which our running races are won. But the actual interest is great, and is getting greater all the while. In the Southern States there are a number of active associations, in which, however, of late years there has, for obvious reasons, been less liberality than before the war. In the North we have three notable meetings; two near New York, which correspond, I should say, somewhat to the English Ascot, and one at Saratoga springs a beautiful summer resort—winch lattermeeting corresponds accurately enough to the Goodwood. If you have improved on the English custom, and have a habit of keeping the time made by your runners, you may like to know that of our winners this year. At Saratoga, for the principal stakes (the Travers), for three-year-old colts and Allies, one mile and three-quarters, Mr P. Lovillard’s brown colt Attila, carrying 1101b, won in 3rain. Bfaec. Eleven years since, when these stakes were established, the time was 3min. IBsec. It was got down to 3min. 14sec. in 18/2. (if the eleven winners in as many years, seven had been sired bv Lexington, a splendid blind stallion from Kentucky. Of the remainder, two have been sired by an imported English horse named Australian, though the winner this year had for a dam a daughter of Lexington. It shows a most remarkable strain of blood, certainly, and I may add that the Lexington family has not held its own without determined competition. Collegiate athletic sports also received an immense impetus this year, from a series of contests inaugurated at Saratoga by an association of publicspirited citizens of that place. This association has control of a fine lake, nestling in the hills about four miles from the Springs, and affording a splendid course for rowing, and they have succeeded in making "it the headquarters of the collegiate races, in connection with which they have also provided for regular competions in running, and in our “national game” base-ball, limiting them, however, to representatives of our colleges. This year eleven crews took part in the in-ter-collegiate race, which was for six oars, over a three-mile course, straight away. The principal competitors were from our two leading universities, Yale and Harvard, the one regarded as representing as nearly as possible the Oxford stroke, the other still adhering to a stroke of its own, not very different from that used in the famous race on the Thames between Oxford and Harvard. I am sorry to say that there was this year a great deal of bad blood between these two crews and their friends. The Y;de men especially showed it by ruffianly conduct on the ground, while the Harvards undoubtedly felt it, but bore themselves ranch more quietly, A foul threw the Yale crew out in the first part of the race, and made them intensely angry. The race then lay between two new crews, one from Columbia College, in this city, one from the Wesleyan University, a Methodist and Theological school in Massachusetts, and the Harvards. The Columbia men won by a very small leeway, the Wesleyans came next, and the Harvards third. The winners use an almost exact counterpart of the Cambridge stroke, and were, I believe, trained by a Cambridge graduate. Their time was 1 Grain. 42secs., and that of the Wesleyans 1 Grain. 50se.es., The Freshman’s race, I may remark, was won in IBmin. distance three miles, by another crew of theologians from the Presbyterian school of Princeton, New Jersey; so you see that muscular Christianity is not without its devotees in our land.