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■ ■ • t f ! - I - . r ■ , r I . ; PARIS RACING SEASON ON ♦ Bad Weather and Wet Footing Mar Jumping Meeting at Auteuil. i • , Coq Gaulois Retired to Stud — Duke at Work Renovating Old Hildreth Place. ♦ SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE. PARIS, -ranee. February IS. — The Paris racing ■eases for the present year openeil day l efoie yesterday at Auteuil. There was only a fair crowd pres-I ent — far smaller than at the opening of last year. It was mild but wet under foot, owing to a thaw and a Made during the morning. All the winners were trained by Maisons-Laffitte men. and Bariller had a veritable field day, saddling three winners. Among these was the Due Decazes Waterford. The gray Irishman continued his winning streak, taking the steeplechase easily, with Willie Head riding comfortably. P.arre, the regular Bariller jockey, got a nasty tumble the other day at Cannes and is at present on the ground. The general opinion is that Waterford will be entered in the National next year if he goes on well. He is eertainly a fine jumper, but. of course, has not yet been asked to go four miles. The renovating of the stands and the remodeling of the course at Auteuil has been in hand for some few months. Work now will have to be dis-, continued until after the big steeplechase next June. It is intended to have the entire plant in apple pie order and quite modernized by the opeu-• ing of the 1923 season. McGEE SUFFERING FROM GRIP. Meflee got a touch ef the grip after the strenuous trip back on the Paris and has gone to St. Merita for a change of air. News has reached here that Frank ONeill will be back on the twentieth, so Murphy is probably contemplating an early campaign, and Frankie is needed to sharpen them up. Nobody has seen Murphy since he went into ; winter quarters at Poissy. At Maisons-Laffitte yesterday there must have been seventy men at work on the old Hildreth place, now the property of the Aga Khan. Duke likes his home. His stables are in perfect shape, and thu place will be quite up to his ideas when he gets finished with it. He is building a sand ring on one side of the park to trot and walk on before taking the string on the gallops. The prince is now in India; but Duke received a cable the other day that he would return in March. Of course, your readers know that this Indian potentate was a liberal buyer of fillies at the English sales last year and that his interests in racing are looked after by Hon. George Lambton. The English stable is a thing quite apart from Dukes over here. "Gene" Leighs jockeys seem to have made a good impression on the gallops. His lightweight, of course, is to a certain extent an unknown quantity. COtt GATJL0IS RACING ENDS. Coq Caulois has a leg and his career on the race ■com so is finished. He begins stud duty this breeding season at the Due Decazes Haras in Normandy. Certainly he was an impressive figure in racing. He won the Grand Steeplechase of Paris: but it was as a hurdler that he really shone. Yet he could also win between the flags through the field. Then at off times Lieux would pull him out to win a handicap on the flat. He was a famous and popular , horse, and his passing will be regretted. The English sporting papers last week sjioke fnlly of Duettiste. It will lie necessary to let your correspondent over there handle the news about this I , American jumper. The other day at Chautilly we saw Jerry Welsh schooling a couple of young horses over some brush hurdles. Duettiste learned his first lessons over the same ones and we remarked that it would be pleasant if there was as good a one as lie had proved to be among the two at work. Welsh • replied it would be more than pleasant for him and especially for Mr. Widener. There was a Rabelais Wales was jumping well and an Ecouen taking a good look at his jumps and impressing one that steplechasing would be more his game. Returning racegoers from the Riviera seem rather filled up with Cannes for racing purposes. They complain of the course and it looks as if the big meeting at Nice rather takes the glint off the gin- . gerbread. Cannes is better adapted as in the past to its polo and its golf. The meeting at Pan was much better spoken of and naturally so when one . considers the riding and hunting indulged in at this winter resort in the Pyrenees.
