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HAWTHOBNE OPENS TODAY AMERICAN DERBY TO BE CONTESTED BY A SMALL BUT SELECT EIELD. Many Arrivals from Fort Erie Card for the Day Promises Excellent Racing George Smith Injured and Will Not Start. After a lapse of twelve years. Chic.ig.onns -will again liuvo :in opportunity to witness racing tomorrow, when Hawthorne makes its re-entry in the racing world with an experimental meeting of thirteen days. It is conducted under the auspices of the Illinois Jockey Club, an association essentially of Chicago business men. No better setting for a successful meeting could bo imagined than that which appears on the eve of tin? opening. The great amount of interest in the revival of the sport here can best bo judged by the advance ticket sale. From it the management uugur that at least 30,000 persons will view the opening and its attending incidents. The plant, when the finishing touches are made this morning, will present but slight change from that of a dozen years ago when racing in these parts was at its zenith. The grandstand and other buildings have been fixed in solid fashion and the liberal application of paint gives it a new appearance. The course proper is in need of much moisture. Its long disuse, coupled with the fact that it has been used for automobile racing, is responsible for its solidity. The defect will be remedied this afternoon when the track will be given a thorough flushing. The many arrivals during the day, principally from Tort Erie, brings the total of horses at the course to nearly 300. This is hardly enough, but additional arrivals of about 100 racers will make the available timber for the secretarys use ample. "While quantity is lacking, it is made up of quality, for many representative horsemen are co-operating to make the revival successful and have shipped here their best. The 0,000 American Derby is the magnet for the opening day. There are six highly-tried three-year olds named to start in it, but it is doubtful if more than four make the contest. Tin? absentees will be Dick AYilliams, which is at present in New York. The other non-starter will be George Smith, winner of the Kentucky Derby, lie has been here for some time and ruled favorite in whatever ante-post betting was indulged in. His absence from the race will come as a surprise and is a matter of keen regret. His failure to make the contest is due to a mishap, sustained in his final preliminary. At first it was regarded with indifference, but lie failed to respond to treatment and yesterday morning his trainer gave it as his opinion that it would result in irreparable harm to the colt if he was started. Owner Sanford. who is in the east, when informed of the colts mishap, instructed that he be left out of the race and to ship him immediately to New York, lie will be sent there next Sunday. The absence of the pair still makes it an interesting race, with the Weber and Ward representatives. Franklin and Dodge, having the call. Murphy will be astride the stables main dependence and Fair-brother, who came from New York and was to have ridden George .Smith, will be entrusted with the second string. Churchill, which will represent Foxhall 1. Keene, will be ridden by F. Kcogh. and Faux-Col, It. .1. Mackenzies nominee, will be guided by jockey George I.yrne. Foxhall 1. Keene, owner of Churchill, arrived yesterday and made? the trip from New York expressly to view the performance of his colt. Easterners who have witnessed Churchill in action give him a royal chance to pull down the biggest share of the rich prize. "Twelve years is a long time and especially for a race track to lie idle, and it certainly is remarkable the way the Hawthorne plant has been kept up and the excellent condition it is now in." This was the comment of starter .lames Milton, who arrived from Puffalo, where he had been attending the Shriners convention after he had looked the plant over. Mr. Milton walked all over the track proper and pronouueed it the fastest he has seen in many a day. lie has all of his equipment in order for the opening and has a competent staff of assistants, which assures Chicago race patrons that the barrier end of the sport will be well taken care of. "There is every prospect of the fields hereafter being of the bigger order, as owners feel reluctant to starting their horses immediately after getting off the cars," said secretary Kdward Jasper. The opening days card on the whole is not a bad one and the daily offerings can be depended on to show improvement. Twelve association valets will be employed during the meeting to attend the riders at the track. Most of them were employed at the Kentucky tracks. II. l:. Laiidemun headed a delegation from Cincinnati, which arrived yesterday. The Louisville delegation expected here to attend the opening, is an extensive one according to advices received yesterday. Trainer Jack Adkins stated yesterday that during the brief period that Puokhorn had done stud service in the spring, lie had served about twenty mares. The II. O. I.edwell aggregation, numbering twenty horses, wen? arrivals yesterday from Fort Erie. Other owners from the same point wen AA". 0. AVonnt. C. N. Freeman and J. M. Shilling. AV. II. Armstrong sold dolus at private terms to II. Webb. G. W. Innes and L. J. Drown were arrivals with their horses from I.atonia. T. 1. Hayes is expected tonight. James Shilling, brother or Carroll Shilling, onetime noted rider, lost both of his good horses. Goldy and I.aby Cal in- Canada recently, and he has only three horses here to race. Daby Cal won a race in which the conditions allowed the winner to be claimed and there were eight claims put in for him. Goldy also went by the claiming route. J. Umensetter, who lias drover Hughes, Ilanovia and several other good iicors in his barn, metered over from Cincinnati. All of his horses are ready to run winning races and they had a lot of success in Kentucky. He sent Hard Ball, which he recently purchased from J. N. Mounce to Lexington to be" rested until the fall racing begins then-. The only brothers in the jockey colony at Hawthorne are Claude and Tommy Hunt, who ride for tht- Weber and Spence stable. The former recently lost liis apprentice allowance after riding in good form while he enjoyed it. and the latter won his first race last mouth. Tommy Hunt can ride as light as eighty-two pounds, while the elder brother weighs in the vicinity of 100 pounds. I. D. Freeman probably made the longest trip of any owner with horses to race at the Chicago meeting, lie came from Dallas, Texas, where his horses have been since the New Orleans meeting closed early last spring. Stake winners at various times are well represented in the opening days card. Among them are Dlackie Daw, Anita. Sir Edgar, Eddie T., Wilhite. Leo Skolny and Liberator, to say nothing of the horses entered in the American Derby. That distance racing is to be featured at the Hawthorne meeting is shown by the opening days program, when three of the six raws will be at a mile or further. There are plenty of staying horses on hand and. after the meeting gets a day or two under way, Kacing Secretary Edward Jasper will have little difficulty in getting the long races to fill. The horses which came to Chicago from Latonia, all shipped in excellent condition and there was not even a single case of sickness reported. When some of the horses were loaded at the Milhlale course it was raining hard and they were given a good drenching, but they did not suffer from their experience. Apprentice riders will be in demand at Hawthorne, as there are not many here. There are plenty of lightweight jockeys on hand, however, and a majority of them are well up in the list of winning riders in America for 1910 to date. Queen Apple, the champion bad luck horse in Kentucky airing the past spring, was sold Friday morning in hope that the hoodoo which seems to pursue the mare will be shaken off at the Hawthorne meeting. She started of toner than any other horse on the bluegrass circuit, and only finished out of the money three times. However, she never won a race in the sixty-two days of racing in that section. W. P. Pood sold her to J. Ellis. Constant schooling has resulted in a big improvement in the post habits of Fan 5., a two-year-old filly which Jack Adkins took from AV. II. Paker at Latonia. This filly is a runner of ability and has several wins to her credit, but she will not behave at the post. She turns and twists and breaks up the start several times and it has always been with difficulty that starters have gotten her away. When she leaves in time, though, she makes her "opponents hustle to run her down. Cascv Jones, a frequent winner on the Kentucky circuit during the recent spring racing season, ran away three miles Friday morning. Ho got the better of his exercise boy and unseated him. The horse did not injure himself and the boy was not even scratched. J. It. Goodman, who owns Casey Jones, took him from Home Pespess in a selling race at Latonia. There are plenty of good routes to the track. lty trolley, the Twelfth street to Fifty-second avenue and Ogden avenue lines can be used. Dy elevated, the Douglas Park branch of the Metropolitan to Fifty-Second, runs nearest to the track. Automobiles may go by boulevard all the way to the course, the best route from tin? .loop being out Jackson to Ashland, thence to Twelfth street, then to Ogden avenue, out Ogden to Twenty-second, and on that street to Fifty-second, which takes them over the big viaduct directly to the race course. The Forty-eighth street boulevard will also be readv todav, running to the main entrance of the track. Over the Illinois Central railroad special trains for todav will be run as follows: 11:30 and 12:30 a. m: 12:50. 1:10, 1:20. 1:35 and 1:50 p. m. Should it be necessary additional trains will be put on. There will be four trains for the track on week days as follows: 12:30, 1:15, 1:30 and 1:50. All trains will run direct to the main gate.
