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PLEiNTY HORSES FOR BOWIE APPROXIMATELY EIGHT HUNDRED TH0R-OUGHBREDS AVAILABLE FOR MEETING. Two Hundred New Stalls Not Sufficient to Supply Demand for Accommodations — Many 0wner3 Will Stable at Benning and Laurel. Baltimore. Md.. March 19. — When a count of the horses that wintered at Benning. Havre de Grace. Pimlico, the southern training places at Charleston and Aiken, and the many private establishments scattered through the District of Columbia, Maryland. Virginia. Southern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, is made, it. will he found that the Southern Maryland Agricultural Association will have a matter of 700 or 800 from xvhieh to draw to fill the seven daily races of the fourteen days program of the coming Bowie meeting, April 2 to April 14, inclusive. For. in addition to these, half the thoroughbreds that have been racing at Havana. New Orleans. Juarez and Tijuana will be coming this way after the finish of the Hot Springs meeting, while the other half will make for the tracks of the Blue Orass circuit. Two hundred new stalls, many more than were destroyed by the fire of last November, in which o.000 or *30.000 worth of horses lost their lives, have been set up since the first of the year, and still there is not room at the new track for all the horses that will race there. Scores of them "will have to put up with stabling at Benning. Laurel an.l Pimlico. and at the Driving Park opposite the Maryland Jockey Clubs track, and the inconvenience of daily trips to and from Bowie iu motor buses and express cars. The Southern Maryland Agricultural Association, having fallen heir to the Washington Jockey Clubs old place in the scheme of eastern racing, begins and finishes the Jockey Clubs racing season now at Prince ieorges Park. Bowie Track Has Picturesque Location. And Prince Georges Park, although it has about it still the suggestion of raw newness, is situated midway between Baltimore and Washington on the interurban electric line, in an environment us picturesque as that of any race track in the country. While it is seasoning slowly, the aesthetic nmong its patrons would do well to remember that Belmont Park, now as attractive to the poetic eye as it is magnificent in its yastness. was new to an offensive degree only a few years back. Not all the horses of the great eastern stables will be ready for the Bowie opening. Nevertheless, many of the easts leading sportsmen will send to Prince Ieorges Park the most precocious of their thoroughbred flyers. Among these sportsmen are August Belmont. R. T. Wilson. Willis Shnrpe Kilmer. Harry Payne Whitney. W. K. Coo. afford A. Cochran. A. K. Macomher. Richard F. Carman. Henry T. Oxaard, Wilfrid Viau of Montreal. Richard F. Carman. Jr.. Samuel Ross. Edward B. McLean and Dr. J. S. Tyree of Washington, J. K. Skinker. I. Raymond of Montreal. J. It. Streett. Colonel Israel Miltiades Parr of Baltimore. A. 1. Parr and Joseph F. Davis of West Virginia. Robert Wnldcn. Alfred Hennen Morris, William L. Oliver. Archibald Barklie and V.. A. Muller of Philadelphia. William Shields, Paul Powers, Alexander Humphreys. John Oliver Keene. William Garth, Lewis Garth. William Bbeedy, Thomas Clyde. A. G. Weston, the Quincy Stable. Anthony L. Asto and W. T. Anderson. Whipping the Track Into Shape. Richard Pending, who has made something of a reputation as a track superintendent, put in the winter improving the going at Bowie. By taking advantage of the uniformly good weather of January, he succeeded in ironing out the uneven places, of which horsemen had not unreasonable ground for complaiat last year and the year before. Thf snows and rains of the last fortnight have helped materially in righting things, for they have packed as no roller could, the new soil. Bowie track is not fast as persons used to Belmont Park understand fast tracks. The soil is sandy and porous, much like the soil at Benning. Nevertheless, a high-clas* sprinter can get three-quarters iu 1:13 or better over the new track when the conditions are right, and th" going is ideal for early spring and late fall racing. The Bowie directorate has not yet devised a scheme of stake specials for the spring meeting at Prince Georges Park. It has been experimenting for a couple of years to find out just what sort ■portaaaea, who get ready for April racing, like. But in the matter of overnight purses Bowie yields to no track in the east. No purse this spring will have a value of less than 1917.sh00 in added money and the handicap features will pay 00 and more. Also each of the daily programs will consist of seven rails.
