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GALA OPENING AT MONCRIEF INAUGURATION OF JACKSONVILLE MEETING MASKED BY BRILLIANT GATHERING Donald Macdonald Wins the Thanksgiving Handicap Handicapand and Two of His Stablemates Are Among AmongOther Other Winners of the Day Jacksonville Fla November 24 Jacksonvilles winter racing season opened this afternoon with a brilliant gathering at Mbncrief Park The grand ¬ stand was gaily decorated with patois and bunting and among the large gathering that turned out were many persons prominent in local business aud politi ¬ cal circles The racing conditions could not well have been 1 in proved upon the track being in excellent condition while the weather was wann and pleasant pleasantA A program of six races was provided with the Thanksgiving Handicap at one mile as the feature S A Clopton furnished the winner iu this race in the consistent Donald Macdouald which led his flicld most of the way and beat Friend Harry a scant length after a long stretch drive driveThe The Clopton colors were decidedly conspicuous during the afternoon three of the six winners coming from this stable Mr Clopton furnished the winner of the second race in Ida I and of the fifth in Lady Irma Both of these fillies made run ¬ away affairs of their races Ida U had a big margin over her opposition at the finish while Lady Iruia was forced to a hard drive to stall off detcruiincd opposition from Ben Double DoubleIu Iu four of the races horses owned by Francis J Pons finished second These included Jack Parker in the first Jack Deninan in the third Ben Double In the fifth and Font in the sixth All hut tbe second race furnished stirring contests with small margins separating the first two twoDonald Donald Macdouald showed brilliant form iu his race Shouldering top weight of 124 pounds he ran around his company with a rush on the turn into the iKickstrcteh and after drawing away into an easy lead had enough left to stall off Friend Harrys stretch challenge challengeThe The inaugural dash went to the greatly improved Hoffman which scored his third straight victory in winning by a s rautlmlf length This nice wai marked by a fast pace from the start the first quarter being run in 23 and the halfmile in 47f 47fThat That the halter brigade will be busy here this winter was foreshadowed by the running up of the winner of the first selling race of the meeting Ida R being boosted 200 over her entered price by the Beverwyck Stable trainer Dave Woodford She was protected and bought in by her owner She was ridden by a lad named W Hopkins It was the boys first mount and he rode iu a promising manner mannerTwentytwo Twentytwo bookmakers cut in nineteen in the big ring and three in the field books There was another book in the 1 field and also a combination hook The layers included George Grice E J Cal laban W Wolfgang Lee Wagner George Kleinman E J Cullen Sam Stephens J Lagand C B Wal ¬ ters H ITanf A S Valentine J Nasraith G Van Gaspeck Charles Walters Gene Austin Clarence H Davids George Vortman E D Noel and James Gil ¬ bert The blockmen in the field were Fred Gcrhardy Oscar Bookman and J Stickler Tom McBride made the combination book and E Trotter was on the block in the 1 field book bookThe The stewards were Thomas C McDowell W P Bureh and W F Schulte They occupied the timing stand in the infield infieldWilfred Wilfred Gerdes and Mel Collins were among the late arrivals from New York Tom Shaw is ex ¬ pected here in a couple of weeks probably after tho holidays Robert Levy who promoted the meeting at Norfolk was among the visitors He is on his way to Houston Tex and stopped over for tue opening openingStarter Starter Dade was in good form and sent all the fields away from the post to good breaks Mr Dadea starting will likely be one of the strong features ot the meeting meetingThe The advance of tbe price of admission to 2 bad little effect on the attendance The crowd was large and ethusiastic and many are predicting that tho sport will lie even more generously patronized than it was last year
