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GOSSIP OF THE TURF. 1 Wealthy Pennsylvania capitalists, it is ! said, have a new race track in mind near ; Philadelphia. Should the racing bill now before the legislature become a law, the track will be built near Torresdale, just outside the citys limits, on the New York division of the Pennsylvania railroad. It is expected that the course will be built on a magnificent scale, permitting meets on a par with those at Gravesend and Coney Island to be held. The seating capacity will be 25,000. New York Jockey Club rules will prevail. If the racing bill becomes a law and the Torresdale track materializes, it is the general opinion that sport of an eminently clean character will be seen on the new course. The Racing Commission, which would then have charge of all racing in Pennsylvania, is composed of men of excellent character, and each has the best interests of the game at heart. The cheap gambling element that has brought horse racing into disrepute with Pennsylvania lawmakers will be barred by them. The commission will be composed of Col. Edward V. Morrell, Michael Murphy and Joseph B. Widener, men who need no introduction to the public. There is every prospect that the colors of J. Story Curtis, the South African millionaire, will be seen on the metropolitan tracks this season. Mr. Curtis is a Virginian, bred and born, but made his money in the land of the Kaffirs, and is always known as the South African millionaire. J. S. Mott, manager of his farm at Leesburg, Va., is at Pfennings now with five or six horses which he-expects to race up the line this season. Mr. Mott was late with his application for stable room and could not be accommodated at the course, and had to stable his horses outside the track. Reports from Los Angeles say that behind J. W. Brooks in the new race track there are several prominent railroad men, among whom are Epes Randolph, vice-president and general manager of the Pacific Electric Railway Company; John A. Muir, general manager of the Los Angeles Railway Company; W. A. Kerckhoff, president of the Kerckhoff, Cuzner Lumber Company; William Garland, president of the Gila Valley, Globe and Northern Railway of Arizona; Captain W. M. Banning, of the Wilmington Transportation Company. The interest of Randolph and Muir is said to be purely personal. It is denied the railroad they represent are at all interested in the project. The talk of a new racetrack for San Francisco still continues. This time Point Richmond is the site for the proposed track. Special Santa Fe boats are to convey the people to Point Richmond. Eastern capitalists are said to be back of the new enterprise, but no names have as yet been given. Insiders say the new track will be ready for operation next season. Captain S. S. Browns valuable brood mare Reckon, by Pizarro Perhaps, by Australian, foaled a splendid colt last Saturday at Sen-orita Stud, by the well known sire Filigrane. Reckon is the dam of the good performers Compute and Sam Phillips. She was bought by Captain Brown last year at the Morris closing-out sales for 7,000. J. D. Neet, of Kindergarten Stud, Versailles, Ky., has sold to Mr. John E. Madden, of Lexington, the yearling colt by Top Gallant Cinderella. The price is withheld, but it is known to be a very large figure. It has been current rumor around Versailles for several weeks that Dr. Neet had rejected an offer of ,000 for the youngster. This colt has been pronounced by the horsemen east and west who have seen him, to be the handsomest and best yearling they had seen. Dr. JSIeet regards him as the best colt he ever bred. He is a half brother to some of the stars of the American turf, including Foreigner, Ferrier, Handsome, Hastings, Plaudit, Glenheim, etc. He is entered in all of the Produce Stakes of the metropolitan tracks, and it will set all reason to naught if he does not prove to be one of the greatest colts of his year. A string of horses, the property of Fred Gebhard, including His Eminence, candidate for the Brooklyn and Suburban Handicaps, The Rival, Gay Boy and some two-year-olds which look like stake winners, arrived at the Westchester track last Tuesday morning, having come direct from the farm at Monmouth Park where they wintered. The entire string is in charge of -v trainer Hill. The lot all seem to be well forward and in prime fettle. His Eminence seems in splendid shape. He wintered and 1 ! ; filled out well and has taken on a lot of i flesh. He has immense depth through the 1 heart region and good bone and muscle. : This horse should give a good account of i himself if looks count for anything. He is -well forward and nearly ready to face the i flag. The Rival has developed into a grand -racehorse. He is hard and fit and appears ready to go to the post. He has improved 1 wonderfully since last season. Gay Boy is engaged in nearly all the large stakes. He has grown into a big, strong, rangy looking : racehorse, and if breeding and conformation count should be heard from in the early events. William K. Vanderbilt, August Belmont and W. C. Whitney have made entries to the Worlds Fair Handicap, the 0,000 event for three-year-olds and upward, to be run at the Fair Grounds at St. Louis at the June meeting of the St. Louis Fair Association in 1904. Mr. Vanderbilt has entered Champs Elysee. The entry is to be considered as an indication that Mr. Vanderbilt intends to take an active part in racing in this country next year, as it is understood that the horse will start for the rich stake unless something unforseen happens. The president of the Coney Island Jockey Club has for several years maintained an extensive racing establishment in France, where his horses have won some of the most important fixtures. At present two American jockeys, Ranch and Nash Turner, are riding for the stable, and it is-probable that they will continue in the colors when the establishment begins operation in this country next year. Mr. Belmont has entered Lord of the Vale, this years candidate for the American Derby; Masterman, which is entered to carry the Belmont colors in all the big handicaps this season; Magistrate, a two-year-old chestnut colt, by Hastings Lady Margaret, and Gallant, a two-year-old bay colt, by Galeazzo Sou-veraine, Mr. Whitney has entered Narcissus and Mercury, both two -year-olds. Daily America. Phil J. Dwyer, president of the Brooklyn Jockey Club, returned to New York from a months visit to Hot Springs, and was one of the conspicuous visitors to the Gravesend track last Tuesday morning. Mr. Dwyer was looking in splendid health, and said that he had been much benefited by the little excursion. Mr. Dwyer will be a very busy man from this time on, as he not only has the Gravesend course to take care of in an official way, but is also one of the main officials in the new Metropolitan Jockey Club, whose track opens for the first time at Jamaica in the middle of April. Mr. Dwyers string this season promises to be stronger than for several years past. Merry Acrobat, which this veteran turfman regarded all last season as one of the best two-year-olds in training, has been going along well, and there are others in the stable which promise to win purses and stakes on the metropolitan circuit. All turfmen would like to see the famous Dwyer colors come back to their own. In years past they were invincible. "Mike" Dwyer, formerly one of the famous plungers on the eastern turf, is still in the game, and with Ethics and Africander has a most useful pair of thoroughbreds. Next to Mr. Corrigan, John E. Madden has the most extensive stable of thoroughbreds at Louisville. There are thirty-five of them. All of them belong to Madden. Most of them are two-year-olds, and many of them are of Maddens own breeding. Asked as to how the lot compared with those he wintered at Louisville last year, Madden said recently: "I dont think they are nearly so good. I had a swell lot of two -year-olds last spring. If these turn out half as well I will have no complaint to make." Observant trainers say there are no accounts and weeds among them. But the lot includes half a dozen or more that on breeding, size and conformation appear to have all the qualities of high class stake performers. Size is required to win the valuable eastern juvenile events, and these youngsters show the results of careful and systematic early training and development. They are big and strong and lusty, some of them bigger than the average three-year-old. With the Aqueduct meeting but a couple of weeks away, trainers are pushing their charges along with vigor round the metropolitan racetracks. Since M. F. Dwyer has arrived from Florida he has scarcely missed a day from his stable. Sunday morning i 1 : i i 1 : nearly every horse in his string had excellent trials. Africapder covered six furlongs in 1:23. Charles Dwyer recently refused 0,000 for the three-year-old son of Star Ruby. Ethics, the honest breadwinner of the stable for the past two years, covered a mile in 1:4S. The four two-year-olds in the string covered a half mile in 52 seconds. A letter just received by a friend from Aleck Shields, who is at Bound Brook, N. J., states that the iron horse Advance Guard was never better in his life than at present. In the proposed match between Advance Guard, Hermis, McChesney and any other horse that should be entered with an entry of ,000, Shields is anxious to run the famous old campaigner, and would like the sum to be 0,000 each horse, and the distance to be two and one-quarter miles. Hermis has done well and is daily doing routine work at Sheepshead Bay. John Reiff, the jockey, who arrived on the Philadelphia last Saturday, said of his trip abroad: "I went over five weeks ago to try to secure reinstatement on the French tracks. Just why I was ruled off the tracks over there I dont know, although it is said it was for pulling a horse or something I never was guilty of. The French Jockey Club never made any specific charges against me. I cannot ride here nor in England until I am reinstated by the stewards of the French Jockey Club. This, I hope, will be accomplished shortly, for I have influential friends working in my interest." Robert Waddell, "Virginia" Bradleys American Derby winner, has been retired on a pension down at Mr. Bradleys farm in Virginia. When the horse broke his shoulder a year ago last fall, Mr. Bradley, who is pretty handy with a cripple, thought he could patch him up for the races again. He succeeded in bringing the crippled member around all right, and Robert Waddell showed his gratitude by breaking the other shoulder. Mr. Bradley then decided to cut out the patching up business, so far as Robert Waddell was concerned. As Robert Waddell is a gelding, his days of usefulness are over, but he will always have the best the farm can produce. Secretary Macfarlan of the New Memphis Jockey Club has been notified that the ban imposed upon Hart Dernham by the stewards of the Crescent City Jockey Club, when they ordered that entries from Dernham at New Orleans be refused, had been lifted. As long as Dernham was under the cloud at New Orleans there was no chance for him to have entries from his stable accepted at Memphis.
