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ANNUAL CHAMPION ON SATURDAY. Ballot Stands Out as Favorite Salvidere, if Fit, the Contender. By far the richest Ions distance event of the American turf for three-year-olds and over is the Annual Champion, which will be run at Sheepshead Bay next Saturday. It is of the guaranteed value of 5,000 and is run over the old fashioned cup route of two miles and a quarter. One feature of the Annual Champion is that it is a continuing stake for horses nominated. Any horse entered when a yearliii!? or a two-year-old, for which all fees have been paid up to the time when its first opportunity to run in the race arrives, is thereafter eligible to start in each recurring year on the payment of the starting fee of 00. From this it results that there is a big list of cligibles that have been retired from racing. Such cracks of other davs as Africander, Delhi, Ort Wells, Major Daingerlield, Bockton and Stalwart, all now in the stud, could be put in training again and started any year as long as they are alive. Accountant, for instance, won last year and while in retirement this year because of an unsound leg, might stand training again in BIOS and has the possibility of again winning the big race. There is no apparent prospect for a large field next Saturday. Ballot will undoubtedly be the favorite and the other three-year-olds that might start are Salvidere, Montgomery, Daumonok, Foun-taiublue, Kentucky Beau and McCarter. Of the older horses the best are Ironsides, Glorifier, Bedouin, Holscher. Lotus Eater and Bapid Water and are all that offer remote suggestions of a possible starter. Of these it is not improbable that Ironsides and Bedouin will go to the post. Both are iu good condition and working well. Salvidere lias evidently been trained for this race. lie was the best two-year-old of last year and is distinctly a disappointment so far in 1907. In his few starts he has raced gamely and well, but not nearly up to the form expected from the champion two-year-old of 1000. This has been, and possibly rightly, attributed to lack of flesh and strength due to sickness. A sojourn at Saratoga is reported to have beuelited him greatly and of late he has been given much long distance training work in which he showed up satisfactorily. Last Tuesday he worked the Champion distance of two miles and a quarter in 4:05J. This .was an encouraging trial and it seems that if Ballot should be beaten, Salvidere is the horse that will do it. Outside of the possibility of his having regained his splendid form as a two-year-old, there does not seem any other chance of preventing Ballot from being returned the winuer. On the supposition, not likely to be realized, that all of the eligibles named might be sent to the post, the Annual Champion field would be the following: Horse. .Age. Drob. Jockey. Wt. Glorifier 5 Garner .12t Ironsides 4 W. Knapp 11! Bapid AVater i J. Martin 119 Lotus Eater 4 B. McDaniel ll! Ballot 3 AV. Miller 115 Holscher 4 Horner 114 Montgomery 3 Badlke 112 Bedouin 5 Nicol Ill McCarter 3 Notter 107 Fountainblue 3 Onley 102 Daumonok 3 Sandy 102 Salvidere . 3 E. Dugan !! Kentucky Beau 3 M. Preston 00 In the Annual Champion three-year-olds carry 112 pounds, four-year-olds and over 124. These weights are modified by penalties and allowances. Ballot has a three pounds penalty; Salvidere has a ten pounds non-winning allowance and being a gelding has three pounds more ou that account. The weights are calculated to date.
