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TWO BEAUTIFUL COURSES CHARMS OF DOUGLAS PARK AND CHURCHILL DOWNS WHICH APPEAL TO THE EYE. Eagerly Awaiting Publication of Kentucky Handicap Weights — Horses That May Contend for the Honors of This Valuable Race. Louisville. Ky.. April 22. — The many extensive improvements that Manager John Hachmeister has under way at groat expense at Douglas Park are Ix-ing rapidly pushed towards an early completion and are sure to be all finished long before the owning dav of the coming spring meeting at this plant Monday. May 29. Within the Douglas Park enclosure now the grounds cover 130 acres in all. The plant is being surrounded by an ornate picket fence eight feet high and 2.500 feet long. The only gaps in this feme are at two imints one at the main roadway entrance to the track where the lodge gat" is installed, and the other a lodge gap through which tin; street railroad track runs from the Douglas Park Interurbaii station to the grandstand part of the grounds. All the roads now leading to the track are macadamized and will 1m- in an entirely finished condition in the next ten days. From the entrance the boulevard leading to the grandstand is all of u quarter mile long. Another big improvement is enlarging the space in front of the grandstand where the public passes through the entrance to take the street cars. This is so arranged as to in the future greatly lessen the congestion at this point on all racing days, no matter how large the crowd in attendance. It will be a revelation to all visitors at Douglas Park this spring, as they regard the present beauty of this racing plant. It was looked uiion before as a worthy rival to any race course ever laid out in the west, but now it assumes a magnitude in beauty, that only the most finished landscape artist has the ability to devise. Looking over the track fence at Churchill Downs several days ago was an old-time turfman, long a resident of Louisville, and whose age has crossed the lim- of three score years and ten. Said he: "It is hard to realize what a wonderful track the Churchill Downs pleat has developed into under twentieth century management. It was near the spot where we are now standing that I remember seeing the late Col. M. Lewis Clark, sitting astride of a fallen tree, looking over the cornfield that in 1S74 covered the territory which now embraces the ground of the Xew Louisville Jockey Club. The course was laid out that fall, but my, no man could dream then the scene to be viewed here today. There were at first only eighty -seven stalls on the grounds and the old jockey club at the beginning had the side attachment of a driving park association, so as to secure stockholders, who. at the time, were big trotting horse breeders. Stock in the jockey club then was easily secured. The whirligig of time has surely been generous to this racing plant." Remarkable is the list of eligiblcs to the Kentucky Handicap and horsemen are eager for the day to arrive for the publication of the weights, which will come out on May 30. four days l«-fore the running of the race. Roamer will again this season make a try for this race, and the event will also probably mark his first meeting with the great filly Regret, the only one of her sex that has ever succeeded in winning the Kentucky Derby. Rorrow, Hodge and Prince Hermis, the three placed horses in the Kentucky Handicap last year and, all of which finished in front of Roamer. may again ba start-rs this year. Star Jasmine and Waterblossom, the two cracks of T. C. McDowells stable, are among the eligiblcs. The former won the Ii-tonia Cup. two miles and a quarter, last fall, and beat all records in Kentucky at this distance, her time being 3:50%. As to Waterblossom. she won both the Kentucky Oaks and the Canadian Derby last year. It is a remarkable array of three -year-olds that is engaged in this event this year. In fact, it is nearly safe to perdiet that one of that number will win some of the big Derbys of this year. These include such as Thunderer. Dominant, Bromo, Skei-r Face. Prince Harry. Dick Williams. Kllison. Heir Apparent. Dr. Moore. Bulse. Old Koenig. Gillies. Star Hawk. Colonel Vennie and Cosmic. Other older horses that are in training, with this big event in view, are Emerson Cochran. Black Toney, Hanovia. Beat ODay. Boots. Royal II.. Lea Ray. Brynlimah. Manager Waite. Bayberry Candle. For Fair. Marion Coosby. Buskin, Raincoat, Celesta. Water Witch and Kd Crump. It is easy to see that out of this band of good race horses much can be expected in the way of a field this year and. in all probability, the winner of the event might lie voted at the end of the year the champion handicap horse of 1916.
