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CHARLESTONS ATTRACTIVE OFFERING. Preparations Well Under Way for Third Winter Meeting at Palmetto Park. Charleston, S. V. October 4. This Charleston Fair and Racing Associations list of stakes for its coming winter meeting numbers twenty-three, with a gross value of 2,000. The Fort Sumter Inaugural Handicap will be run on the opening day, which is Monday, December 1. The Palmetto Derby, value ,000, will be run on Saturday, February 2S, the closing day of the meeting. It will be the first Derby of 1914 and Will give the racegoing public a line on the staying ability of the two-year-olds of 1013. The Christmas, New Year, Robert E. Lee and George Washingtons Birthday Handicaps all carry a value of ,000. Besides there will be eight ,000 handicaps. The selling platers will have six ,200 events to compete for and four two-year-old races of ,200 will also be offered. The books of the meeting, which will be compiled by Martin Nathanson, who will act as racing secretary, will be conditioned to suit all classes of horses and an over-night handicap of 00 will be offered on the days when no stake races are carded. From the way that applications are coming in for stable accomodations it looks as if there will be at least one thousand horses here this winter and the association will be hard pushed to accomodate late comers. The track is in first-class condition and fast time may be expected. It will be Palmetto Parks third racing season. Racing in Charleston is an old sport, for the records show accounts of meetings held in the early part of the year 1S30 and in the year 1S74 the famous South Carolina Jockey Club licid its first meeting at the Washington course. The gateway of this famous race track, consisting of four massive pillers of brick, was presented to August Belmont when he was building the Belmont Park race track on Long Island and they now adorn the main entrance of that widely-known course. The meeting held by the South Carolina Jockey Club was such a success that an extra meeting was conducted under the direction of Mr. L. A. Hitchcock, at that time one of the leading turfmen of the country. The fact that an extra meeting was necessary is evidence enough of the popularity of the sport in the state of South Carolina. The original meeting, in 1S74. was held on February 20 and the extra meeting on March 0 and 9. With the opening of other race courses in more densely populated districts e sport at Charleston gradually died out. but the spirit for the sport still remains, as is shown by the way Charlestouians patronized the two meetings recently held at Palmetto Park, and all are anxiously awaiting the opening of the coining season. The past two seasons racing did not begin so early as the meeting to be held this year. The early opening will mean mucli for the commercial benefit of the city, as the enormous crowd of racegoers who will be in Charleston will do their Christmas shopping here, and the followers of the k,-or-oughbreds are lavish buyers. Charleston, with her two years experience, is in better condition to take care of visitors than ever before. New houses and apartments have been built and arrangements have been made to let furnished rooms and to tako lward-ers. The opening of the local racing season will immediately follow the closing of the eastern racing season at Norfolk, Va., on November 29.
