view raw text
SARATOGAS SATURDAY CARD Saratoga Special, Champlain Handicap and North American Steeplechase Down for Decision. SARATOGA, N. Y., August 13. Despite the rainy weather and its accompanying heavy track the racing at this point has been very good the past few days, and the course is thronged daily with enthusiasts from the surrounding country, which, with the transients here for the entire meeting, constitute a gathering that makes an ordi-.nary day resemble an old-time Saturday. With the clearing skies there is every indication of the best of the two-year-old division getting to the post for the Saratoga Special tomorrow. The Special is one of those events which has a compensation extending beyond the day of the contest. In the first place it is a sporting proposition, and calls for a subscription of 00 for each starter. The trophy which the Saratoga Association donates to the winner is always a handsome one, and the desire to have it in ones collection of racing souvenirs is responsible in a great measure for the popularity of the race. There are long winter evenings when the average owner finds it a pleasure to inspect, perhaps for the hundredth time, some such prize as the gold cup which will go to the winner of this years test, and if there are friends to hear how the emblem was won the gratification in its possession is all the greater. Racing without such tests as the Saratoga Special would be largely commercial, and the more of them the turf has each year the better it is going to be for the jqwrt. The overnight acceptances for the Special include II. P. Whitneys unbeaten Peter Pan colt Tryster, which lias not started since his victory in the Youthful Stakes at Jamaica, June 19; the crack filly Prudery, a stable mate of Tryster; E. R. Bradleys Black Servant. J. W. McClellands Serapis. R. T. Wilsons Dimmesdale, W. S. Kilmers Our Flag and II. II. Hewitts Advocate. In addition to the Special the Champlain Handicap and the North American Steeplechase will be flee j;;pV turn prvvherior and over, is at a mile and an eighth, and with such a crack field as Exterminator, Boniface, Naturalist, Gnome, Dr. Clark, Cirrus, The Porter, Mad Hatter, Minto II., Jack Stnart and Cromwell is certain to furnish a contest well worth going miles to see. Recent rains have brought the steeplechase course to a state bordering on perfection and with eight of the best jumpers in training named to contest .the 1920 running of the North American Steeplechase, lovers of cross-country sport are sure to witness an exciting and spectacular race over the jumps.
