Sport: Another for Big Red

Unlike Britain and France, which have long used a system of year-end ratings to evaluate top race horses the U.S. muddled along with no official formula for comparing its turf champions. Last month in Lexington, Ky., breeders of the Thoroughbred Club of America decided to do something about it. They agreed on a plan to standardize rankings of the nation's top-flighters with a system of handicap weights based on performances at a mile-and-a-quarter. It was to be called the Yardstick.

Last week, the first edition of the Yardstick (for 1948's three-year-olds) was made public. It surprised nobody that Calumet Farm's Citation was honored with top-weight of 137 lbs. Next in line: Coaltown, 126, and My Request, 124. The man hired by the Thoroughbred Club to "put the figures on them" was owlish little Lincoln Plaut, 50, veteran field director of the Daily Racing Form. Having pegged Citation at 137, he had laid a basis for comparing him with champions of the future.

How did Citation rate with wonder horses of the past? This week Handicapper Plaut pored over his form charts for 1920—Man o' War's big year—and came up with a 1920 Yardstick. Said he, reverently: "There never was a year like it." Plaut put a staggering 144 lbs. on the late, great "Big Red" (then came John P. Grier, 126; On Watch, 123; Upset, 122; Wildair 120).

On the theory that one pound equals one length at a mile-and-a-quarter, Man o' War came out on the Yardstick seven lengths better than 1948's wonder horse, Citation.