Saratoga

The Saratoga Association for the Improvement of the Breed of Horses last week figuratively rubbed its hands. Its horse-racing season had opened. The fat figure of Harry ("Hot Dog") Stevens seemed to grow fatter as he turned hungry people away from his race track club. The red face of Edward J. Tranter, potent Saratoga auctioneer, seemed to grow redder as he thought of the $5,000,000 worth of horse flesh that had arrived. Names of Whitney. Riddle, Widener, Vanderbilt, Sinclair, dutifully took their places on the "boards" as the week advanced. On shaded streets leading to the track rolled yellow, open-faced hacks with fringed awnings, four-in-hands, victorias, still the choice of many a Saratoga horse-lover.

Unusually eventful, a little saddened, was last week's opening by the death of James Rowe. Not to most jockies, trainers, nor even to many a famed sport king himself had come the fame that came to Harry Payne Whitney's 72-year-old trainer. A jockey at 16, he early won fame and money. When he knew all there was to know about horses, he became a trainer, trained for such men as the late great August Belmont, James R. Keene. finally for Mr. Whitney. "This is my last ride," said Trainer Rowe last week as he was being driven to the hospital, stricken with a heartattack. His "last ride" over. Saratoga flags were half-masted, the Whitney horses scratched from one day's sheets.