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GOSSIP OF THE TURF. Michael F. Dwyer is expected to arrive in New York from his winter vacation at Rut-ledge, Fla., this week and assume the watchful supervision that he gives the preparation of his horses every year. At last it looks as though Mr. Dwyer has gathered together a formidable string of racers, and will return to the prominent station he occupied on the turf before his unsuccessful journey to England in company with Mr. Croker several years ago. Africander, the star of the Dwyer stable, is going briskly, and is the most fancied of all three-year-olds in training at Gravesend. Philip J. Dwyer is expected to reach Washington during the Bennings meeting, from Florida. None of the horses belonging to either of the Dwyer brothers will be seen at the post before the Aqueduct game begins. James Robertson, who took his string from New Orleans to Bennings about ten days ago, has had more or less illness in his stable since arriving. In this respect he is not unlike many other owners whose stables have journeyed from the south. None have suffered so severely as has Mr. Thomas Hitchcock, Jr., who, as a result of the trip from Aiken, S. C, lost two horses, Dick Thompson, the steeplechaser, and Royal Middy, a two-year-old. Great American, in Mr. Robertsons string, has been ailing ever since his arrival at Washington, and last Saturday he was in such a bad way that it was decided to put him out of his misery by shooting him. Great American was anything but a stake horse, but he was a useful campaigner, and Mr. Robertson had hoped to land more than one purse with him before the season was very old. Other owners who have had horses on the ailing list report their charges as doing very well, and the indications at present are that all of them will have a clean "bill of health to show before the opening of the season in New York. Alfred Featherstones big string of thoroughbreds will leave Kentucky for Morris Park the second week in April. Mr. Feath-erstone, who has spent the winter in New York, will leave for Kentucky early next week to look over the lot with trainer Bauer. Mr. Featherstone said recently: "I look forward to a better season than ever before with my horses. They have all been doing fine, and I will be ready earlier than usual, I believe, according to the reports I have received from the training grounds." Mr. Featherstone will not have the services of jockey Winnie O Connor, that energetic, if uncertain, rider having gone to France to handle the horses in the stable of Baron de Rothschild. Crosthwaite is in the employ of the stable, but with the scarcity of good riders this year, this western lad may, with some sharp improvement, be able to satisfactorily serve Mr. Featherstone.
