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KINGS PLATE AN OPEN RACE RACEFrancis Francis Nelson the versatile sporting editor ot the Toronto Globe writes on the subject of next Saturdays notable nice at Woodbine as follows followsWith With the Kings Plate less than a week away wo have the curious situation that it never was a more open question in spite of the fact that the form of so many Provinccbreds was exposed by frequent racing last year The change in the con ¬ ditions by which twoyearold winners remained eligible for what has been a maiden race for more than half a century wiis sure to produce 11 one ¬ sided Plate declared the critics who think witli their ears The matter wns not oi en to question hnil the Ontario Jockey Club had done a foolish tiling that would destroy interest in the Plate en ¬ tirely So much for the prophets The outcome as we now see was more entries than last year un ¬ certainty about the result more widespread and the prospects for a bigger field than went to the post in 1912 These factors it is to be noted sur ¬ round a nice which has among its nominations a colt bmctieally unbeaten by Provinccbreds last season All the conditions are there to make the Plate a onesided race and it may come to that in the running It certainly is not so a few days before the race We have had an early ami unbroken spring for trilning and a track at Woodbine that was never better Yet at tills stage it is the fact that there has licen nothing shown that would in ¬ dicate any horse as approaching a good thing for the Guineas What any one has done lias been practi ¬ cally equalled by half a dozen others and so far as Hearts of Oak is concerned he has worked with less weight on his back than the other prominent can ¬ didates In Wire In Wnr hoop St Bass and Hearts of Oak Mr Giddings lias shown us the best developed of homebred twoyearolds At that age they were undoubtedly far superior to their contemixjraries so far developed in fact that there was less sco e for improvement in them for the next season than there was with the others That is the Oakville colt would not make proportionately the improvement the others would show when they were threeyearolds The Giddings colts had not so much to make up All this amounts to something in the consideration of the field that is to run next Saturday It can be reasoned from this that Mr Seagrams Voivode for one will have a chance far greater than would be supposed at first glance He raced but once last year and what improvement lie will make for example will be at a greater rate than Hearts of Oak This is an element worth thought and to some extent accounts for the fact that while Hearts of Oak could run over all of them last fall lie may not do it this spring Much may hapi en in eight months monthsApart Apart from the reasons why the fact is that observation of the work of the Plate candidates this spring convinces one that at least four horses have excellent chances of taking down the richest prize in Canada next Saturday Hearts of Oak looks the best to me and if a choice had to be made it would undoubtedly fall on him but I consider that Gold Bud Voivode and Mausolus all have at this stage good chances of beating him The firstnamed was In the first tlight of workhorses last year and the 3am at the start prevented a satisfactory trial In the case of this filly and several others She has worked as well as anything else this spring and is in the hands of a trainer to whom the turning out of winners of the Plato is not a new thing She has to carry 119 pounds but she is a fouryear old anr that is a fouryearolds weight so that the burden is not a factor of any importance in tho case of a horse of average ability The basis of the scale of weightforage is that 119 on a four yearold filly going a mile and a quarter in May is the same as 308 on a threeyearold colt Voivode is the hope of the presidents stable though others may also be started After winning thirteen Plates Mr Seagrams good fortune took a turn and the black and yellow livery has not been successful since Seismic beat Shimoncse five years ago With the Ypsilauti II gelding that will carry the first colors this year lie lias a fine prospect of taking up the winning sequence again againUnlike Unlike the others of the most promising lot Mansolus will have his first experience of actual racing next Saturday when he appears under the brown jacket and green sleeves of Mr Roberts In ills preparation given by a careful man he has answered satisfactorily all the questions asked and sifine of the shrewdest judges about the track are convinced that he is the horse to beat There may be others that will develop as contenders before Victoria Day but now the first Plate under the amended conditions is not one in which interest and contention are lacking
