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VENUS STAKES TO MENTHA. PROBABLY BEST TWO-YEAR-OLD FILLY SHOWN THIS SEASON, SAY CRITICS. Thrilling Finish in the Mile and a Quarter Race Hylas Wins the Steeplechase Brighton Beach Attendance Continues Large. New York, July IS. The Brighton Beach Racing Association is deriving material benefits from the present intensely hot spell. It drives everybody to the seashore and the race, track offers a desirable and fascinating combination of business and comfort, not to speak of the pleasure afforded by the sport itself. Todays splendid card also contributed largely to attracting the immense attendance. Fully 18,000 persons were on hand to witness the first race and half of them were started on a winning career with the success of the jockey idol of the hour, Walter Miller, who rode Al Powell to an easy victory. The track, which was a trifle slow during "the running of the first race, showed steady and rapid improvement as the day wore on and the end found it lightning fast. The soggy condition of the infield, however, rendered a journey over the steeplechase course a hazardous undertaking, yet none of the four starters fell. Thomas Hitchcock, Jr., started both Hylas and Oro, designating the latter as his chief banner-bearer on account of Hylas recent lack of schooling through this most diflicult of all cross-country fields. The second string won only by virtue of his superior class. A mile and a quarter selling race followed the steeplechase and made ample amends for the fiasco that preceded it. Red Friar, Miss Rillle and Lancastrian finished almost abreast after one of ihe most interesting struggles on record. To Jack .Martins -nperJor vigor in -the sriddle-as due.the narrow victory of Phil Dwyers horse. The famous old turf magnate was greeted with much applause as he descended the stairs leading from the stewards stand. The Venus Sta"kes of ,500, for two-year-old fillies, at five and a half furlongs, fourth on the program far overshadowed the remainder of the card in importance and marked the triumph of James It. Keenes Mentha, probably the crack filly of the year. This miss- is the stable companion of Court Dress, which lias, up to the present time, been awarded the palm for excellence among her age and sex. The field was numerically the strongest as well as superior in quality to any that has started in a filly stake this year. Interest was enhanced by the adding of the westerner Victoria It. At the end the race had resolved itself into a duel between the representatives of the east and west. Another splendid spectacle was afforded by the meeting of a band of crack sprinters in the fifth, at six furlongs. The sieedy, game and symmetrical First Premium here vanquished sueh sprinting stars as Tiptoe, Lady Anne and Handzarra with ease. The manner of the colts victory was positively astonishing; he won with so little effort in fast time. Ocean Spray confirmed her preceding excellent endeavor by winning the closing race for three-year-old maidens, at a mile and a sixteenth, without urging, by a half dozen lengths. MeKittrcdge, the degenerate half brother to McGiesney, again failed his backers and finished a distant third. After Harry Page, the gentleman "Jock," got into the saddle on Pure Pepper, his own horse, in todays steeplechase, he carefully adjusted his monocle and during three-quarters of the journey succeeded in maintaining the careful and skillful poise necessary to hold this celebrated eye-piece in place, but when turning into the stretch Mr. Page suddenly woke up to the fact that he had a chance to win and then and there dropped the glass and had recourse to the whip, but the noted gentleman riders undignified haste proved unavailing. .Tolinny Lyons, the San Francisco plunger, who has been attending the Seattle races, has arrived in New York, and was a visitor at Brighton today. Willie Shields is reported to have won 0,000 over the victory of First Premium. The J. L. Hayman string, thirteen In number, pulled out for Saratoga during the morning.
