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RAIN WAS. BADLY NEEDED DOWNPOUR. OF FRIDAY WILL GREATLY BENEFIT TRACK AT LEXINGTON. Fast Work Had Been Prevented By Deep Dust Which Was Attendant Feature of Severe Drought-Remodeled Betting Ring Convenient. Lexington, Ky., August 20. Rome fast work was done 1 1iis week at the Kentucky Association course in preparation for the opening of the fall meeting on September 14, but not by the horses that are being trained hero. The track had been too deep in dust for sensational speed trials. The severe douglit. rather more than the absence of the sprinkling cart which Superintendent Ross started on Thursday, was responsible for the condition of the track. Heavy rain which fell yesterday was of vast benelit, and it is expected that the course will he in excellent condition the coming week. The carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers, painters and electricians under Contractor Harry Schoonmaker are those who did the fast work at the track. They have practically completed the enlargement and rearrangement of the betting ring and thy have made a splendid job of it. Racing folk who patronize the Lexington meeting and who previously experienced the crowding and jostling in the old cramped enclosure, are bound to have a feeling of genuine pleasure over the transformation. The betting ring is now unquestionably the most conveniently arranged in Kentucky, though it is not quite so large as the rings at Churchill Downs and I.atonia. It is now about 250 feet long by 00 feet wide, the tloor being of closely laid brick. At the west end is the grandstand. The north side is enclosed, the frame wall having numerous sliding windows for light and ventilation. Along the north wall, beginning at the grandstand, are arranged enclosed stands for ten pari-mutuel machines, the Lsupply room, the betting ring superintendents of-Bftice. the pool calculators room, the money counters room, the stands for twelve cashiers, a toilet room and lavatory for the pari-mutuel crow, and at the rMid a stairway to the platform on which the board marker works. The blacklxKirds on which the announcements of the tickets sold and the odds paid are on the wall which forms the south end of the ring and just beyond this is the paddock with rearranged rooms for the racing secretary, clerk of the scales, entry clerk and jockeys. One excellent feature of the new ring is, that none of the pari-mntnel crew will have to go into the crowd in the discharge of their duties. There is a straight passageway along the north wall permitting of entrance to every department and there is but one door opening from the booths and oiliees into the ring proper. Another and greater feature is that the arrangement will not permit of a crossing of the lines of those who are buying tickets, and those who are cashing in tickets. All lines run in the same direction, from the south side toward the north side. On the south side, facing the track, the ring is not enclosed and there is nothing to obstruct the view of those who prefer to remain in the ring during the racing. At the north end of the ring there is a movable stand for the auction pooling crew, but if the measure introduced at the meeting of the State Racing Commission on August 10, and now lying over for the required thirty days before action, is adopted, there will be nothing doing in or about it. Racing Secretary W. II. Shelley opened his office at the track Monday and has put in a busy week getting out entry blanks for the live stakes that arc to close next Saturday: making contracts for various necessary adjuncts to the meeting; writing the conditions for the races that are to he programmed during the nine days of sport, and doing the scores of little things that always have to he attended to preliminary to the opening of a meeting. In point of numbers the string that John O. Keene is training for Johnson N. Camden is the largest at the Kentucky Association track just now. There are twenty-three head in the barn, but twelve are yearlings, and only nine of the others are intended for racing this fall. Boola Boola and iPraetorian have been fired and will not be handled again until winter. The nine serviceable horses are the good two-year-old Wheelwright. Batwa. Mycenae, Merode, Tirana, Agora. Itonnc Chance. Belgian and Tonga. The last-named two are geldings that have never been to the post. They are both by Mazagan. the former holng out of Trent and the latter a son of Aggie Marden. The yearlings are as follows: Bav colt by Mazagan Stlieno. Bay gelding half-brother to Boola Boola by Mazagan The Mecca. Bay gelding by Mazagan Sister Juliet. Bay gelding by Mazagan Amy J. Brown gelding by St. Simonian II. Ternicna. Chestnut gelding by Star Shoot Hindoo Rose. Bay gelding by Electioneer Carthagena. Bay filly by Mazagan Emma Traunmuller. Bay filly hy Mazagan Proud Daisy. L Bay filly hy Mazagan Pcnina. I Hay tilly by Mazagan Kenmore Queen. Chestnut filly by Mazagan Nuns Cloth. . The best-looking Individual in the collection Is the Proud Daisy filly. She is as line a package of juvenile- horseflesh as lias been seen in Kentucky in many a day. These yearlings are all well broken, hut none of them lias been tried for speed, nor even shod, and trainer Keene says lie does not intend to train them for their trials until after the fall meeting at the local track. Assistant Secretary Algernon Daingerfield of the Jockey Club wired from New York to Racing Secretary "W. H. Shelley of the Kentucky Association tills week, that if the association would lix the renewal of the Ashland Oaks for this fall instead of next spring, and make the distance one mile and a half instead of one mile. lie would add a cup valued at 50 and guarantee a cup of that value for ten years. The offer was referred to the directors of fhe Kentucky Association and they decided that inasmuch as their predecessors had. after the inaugural running of tho Ashland Oaks In the fall rnf 1S79, made it a spring event through the succeeding vears until its discontinuance in 1S97, they would not chauge their plans for its running in the spring. There is no bettor-looking string of horses at the Kentucky Association track than those owned by Thomas C McDowell. They have been enjoying the grass at Ashland Farm since the close of the La-lonia meeting, and came to the course for their fall preparation this week in splendid physical condition. The .Manager looks simply grand; lima is greatly Improved and so is True Blue. Cherryola. while one of the three nominated for the Kentucky Endurance Stakes by Johnson N. Camden, is still in the string of John T. Ireland and looks better than she has at any time in twelve months. Raleigh P. D. is doing famously for Moore Johnson. Ethel D., in the P. II. Donnelly string, is much improved in appearance. Drury Riley is highly pleased with the conditon of Leamenee. I. N. Prewitt came over from Danville during the week and entered the two-year-old Mack B. Etihnnks for the Idle Hour Handicap. He says the colt Is doing nicely in the Everraan barn at Latonia. J. S. Ward and William Wallace were among the visitors here this week. They took advantage of the lay-off In Canada to make a trip home. Both say that the sport across the border has been great this season. At the close of the Windsor mooting Mr. Ward will come here witli Console and Longhand, picking up four horses lie now has at Latonia. Two entries to the Ashland Oaks were received this week from Thomas Fortune Ryan, the New York financial magnate. He will try to win this event next spring with Belle Hampton or Wondawhy. N. B. Davis is among those who made application this week for stable room at tho fall meeting. Fred Forsythe came over from Harrodsburg and spent a couple of days with his friend, Jack Keene. Mr. Forsythe has no horses in training this year, but he has a stud of about thirty good mares and the stallion Out of Beacli at his Fountainblue Farm in Mercer County. He will dispose of his yearlings here in September. Racing Secretary Shelley lias so conditioned the inaugural scramble for the fall meeting as to attract such sprinters as Ethel D., Donau, Round the World, Raleigh P. D., Grover Hughes, Harrigan. Follie Levy, Chapultepec, Winning Widow and John Griffin II. Superintendent James P. Ross has received the new sprinkling wagon that was ordered a month or more ago, and he likewise has a new equipment of track tools. There should now be no complaining about the condition of the track. In the expectation that Prince Mantascheff will accept the terms cabled him yesterday, jockey Andreas A. Thomas and his mother are making preparations to sail from New York for Russia on Wednesday next. Messrs. Johnson N. Camden and J. O. Keene have agreed to the terms proposed bv Prince Mantascheff for tho services of the good lightweight rider, with the exception that they require a payment of a certain amount .lit cash before the boy leaves this country. When "the cash is received by W. Stewart Hunter, of the Powers-Hunter Company, wlio have been conducting the negotiations and who arrived here from New York this morning, Thomas will leave for Moscow. John J. McCalTerty has rented a twelve-stall stable at Robert Straders Forkland Farm until after he fall meeting here and on Monday will begin breaking the yearlings that were purchased this week by Amos Turney. Tho string will number ten head, the Russell Cleora colt that Mr. McCalTerty bred and owns, the seven head that Mr. Turney lKiught Thursday and two that lie acquired today, they being the chestnut colt by Ornus Balsam Fir, bought from Col. Milton Young, and the bay colt by Orlando Anna Bain, purchased from R. T. Baker.
