The American Thoroughbred, starting flat-footed in a mechanical gate and racing around turns at speeds often close to forty miles an hour, is subjected to terrific physical strain. A horse weighs a thousand pounds and more, and that half-ton of weight is corning down on a small hoof and an ankle that can be clasped by thumb and middle finger of a man’s hand. And this on tracks that have been given a hard “pasteboard” sur face to increase speed as tested by the watch in order to impress the public! It is no wonder that so many horses go wrong crack hooves, bow tendons, develop joint trouble, become bleeders. Indeed the wonder is that all of them do not develop some infirmity. Good and valuable horses are not raced again until they have overcome some unsoundness, or are thought to have done so. But the cheaper animals, those that make up the bulk of racing programs, are sweated for the brass most cruelly, and many of those wagered on by the public each day are afflicted with some unsoundness. A wager on an unsound horse is always a most risky transaction, and I suggest that a player avoid it so far as he can. Detection, of course, is not always possible. But a player can view the horses in the paddock and on their way to the track, noting bandages and any soreness. He will be assisted in this amateur vetting if he scrapes acquaintance with a trainer and gets him to talk about the disabilities to which horses are subject and how to detect them.