view raw text
THE THREE-YEAR-OLD FILLIES. If the good fillies that cropped up as two-year-olds in 1898 perform this year up to their average form of last season it seems reasonable to conclude they will be unusually prominent factors in the turf operations of the year. Examination of the records will show that, despite the prevailing prejudice against their sex as racing factors and iho comparatively less number trained, the fillies held their own against the colts nobly. Many of the best exhibitions of speed, sameness, ability to carry weight, to negotiate any kind of going and to cover any distance incident to the two-year-old racing of last year stand to the credit of the fillies. It will probably develope, too, that the number of high-class ones was exceptionally large. Mr. Thomas C. McDowell was fortunate enough to own two of the best, if indeed he did not possess the best of her sex and ago in the splendid filly Spiritueile. This great daughter of the American Derby winner Spokane and Narka ran in sixteen races, of which she won eleven and was second in five. Two of her defeats were inflicted by that good but not con- j sistent colt Jolly Roger, and another by the crack colt Kentusky Colonel. The flying Toluca beat her at Washington Park, but she had up j 118 pounds to Tolucas 108 and The Kentuckian, now being booiued to do great things this year, was nowhere, carrying only 100 pounds at that, Marvelously fast on fast going, she was equally at home in mud of any quality, and altogether justified her well established reputation of being one of the best young mares seen in many years. One thing can be said of the high class fillies of last year and that is that they were mostly the property of western owners. Outside of Whiplash and perhaps Lady Lindsay it is questionable if any of the eastern owned fillies could have held their own at equal weights withSoirituelle, Espionage, Black Venus, Mat-anza, Toluca, Satin Slipper, Rush, Miss Marion or Jinks. Rush was Mr. McDowells other crack filly. She came out at Newport and won four straight races before taking defeat, then I running fourth to Toluca, Olinthus and The j j Kentuckian at Harlem. In all Rush started in thirteen races of which she won eight and was second in three. Twice she beat Jolly Roger, onca on a dry track and once in mud. Formero, Canace, Theory, Souchon, Tulla Fonso, Jinks and other good ones succumbed to her at one time and another. Rush is a baj, by Wads-worth Reine dOr. One of the first flight fillies of the year was Black Venus, by Kantaka Queenie. She raced as the property of Mrs. E. O. Pepper, and was sold at the end of the season to Mr. W. C. Whitney. She started in seventeen races, of which she won nine, was second in three, and third in two. Her speed was remarkable. At Washington Park with US up she beat Souchon, 110, Toluca, 115, and six othor fast ones Ave furlongs in 1 :00i. At Sheopshead Bay, 113 pounds, she won the Great Eastern Handicap, doing the Futurity Course in such phenomenal time as 1:00, with Ethelbert. Martimas, Manuel, Dr. Eichberg, Ways and Means, Autumn, Glenheim and other cracks well in the rear. This was a very great race. At the same track she gave weight and an easy beating to all the best fillies of the east in the Belles Stakes, Prestidigitatrice, Lady Lindsay, High Degree and Whiplash, being in the field. A stable companion of Black Venus was Satin Slipper, by Kingston Lady Stylites. She, too, was a performer of great speed and quality. Of her ten races she won seven and was second in two. Toluca beat her in her last start of the year for the Silver Brook Stakes, five and a half furlongs, at Morris Park, but she had to step the distance in 1:06 to do it. Shortly before she had won the Hurricana Stakes at five furlongs in a minute flat. She beat a good field for the Flatlands Stakes at Brooklyn. Most of hei 1 aces were with moderate weights up and most of them were exceedingly fast. Matanza may have been as good as any filly out last year. She started in ten races and won six. There was no compromise with her. She either won or was one of the "also ran." By i Hanover The Niece, she proved herself a high clabs filly by taking up 119 pounds at Saratoga and easily beating Kinley Mack, Manuel, Martimas, Kentucky Colonel, Frohsinn, Galahad and Lady Lindsay for the ,000 Grand Union Hotel Stakes, over a track deep with mud. At the same place, track good, she beat Rhinelander, Kentucky Colonel, Kinley Mack and The Bouncer for the Pepper Stakes. Nobody could dispute the merit of such performances. She won two stakes at Brighton Beach also but the class of her opposition was not so good as in the two Saratoga events. Her speed is of the highest order. Any track suits her and she should rank high this year if all goes well with her in training. It is hard to estimate Louis Ezells Espionage, but this daughter of Inspector B. and Sun Maid was certainly a great filly last year. She had such a gruelling campaign, however, that it would hardly be reasonable to expect much of her this year. Still, she won the California Oaks a short time back and it may be that she is one of the tribe of "iron" horses that go on t I racing well under treatment that would send weaker ones to the bone yard. Last year she started in thirty-six races and won twenty, besides being six times second and twico third. Three-quarters in 1:14, five anda half furlongs in l:07i, with good weight up, are samples of her average speed always on tap. Gently handled and raced only whoa on edge, there is no telling what high fame this filly might have attained. The California-bred filly, Toluca, by Nomad-Sweet, abundantly proved herself one of the CONTINUED OK SECOND PAGE, THE THREE-YEAR-OLD FILLIES. Continued from 1st Page. fastest of the year. Carrying 108 pounds, she beat Spirituelle, 118; Canace, 95; Batten, 101; Ailyar, 115, The Kentuckian, 100, and three others, at Washington Park, six furlongs in 1:14. and a few days later, with 110 up, won the ricb Hyde Park Stakes in 1 :14i, defeating Jolly Roger,113; W. Overton, 121; Formero,113; Kentucky Colonel, 113, and King Barleycorn, 116, good form enough for anybodys filly in any year. She ran in twenty-four races last year and was twenty times "in the money," with nine times first, four times second and seven times third. Toluca is one of the stars that will shine in the Whitney stable this year, and a bright one sLo is. Those were all about as good fillies as ever were seen out in any one year and yet they wero not much better than Lady Lindsay with her eleven wins in twenty-fonr starts, or Jinks, Miss Marion, High Degree, Guess Me and Maud Ferguson, to say nothing cf the possibilities of the unbeaten May Hempstead, And then only a little below these in rank were Souchon, Diminutive, Pearl Barnes, Tulla Fonso, Canace, Glasnevin, Josephine B. and others that might be named. Fillies are proverbially uncertain racers in the spring and early summer, but allowing for all contingencies it seems now that with so much good material in sight the races of the year for fillies will be invested with a higher degree of interest than has been the case j for a number of seasons past, to say nothing of their chances in competition with the colts.
