view raw text
i » ; 1 i i . i j , ill l Hi i ■■■—*— ■afc— BOWIES FOOTING IMPROVED Weather and Work Have Helped to Overcome Peculiarities of Maryland Course. MAI.TIMORF. Mil . March 24— .Superintendent Pending, who has liecn working on the track at Bowie three or four years with the object of seeming a uniform cushion, thinks he has it. The geological character of the Howie soil is whimsical. The backstretch. including the extension that permits of racing seven-eighths around only one turn, runs over a bed of clay. The footing is firm when this clay is dry. But this clay surface terminates abruptly at the beginning of the far turn. A hat of filling had to be done to make the far turn. This filling was done with sand. The stretch was run through a bed of sand, which continues around the first turn and into the angle of the backstretch extension. Naturally the footing from the end of the backstretch around the far turn, down the stretch and well into the near turn, was cuppy. Early efforts to correct these inequalities in the course were not successful. The backstretch has . boasted of what the sophisticated call "39 going." f In the backstretch it is no stunt for a fast hois. to run an eighth in 12 or better, a quarter in 23 or thereabout, three-eighths in H and a half in 17. But from the beginning of the far turn on it has always taken a really g»od horse to gel an eighth in as good as 13 and a quarter in better than 20. The best horses have always slowed up sharply after • running the first three-quarter mile of races of one mile or over. There has been a lot of work dote-on the course to quicken it and make the footing uniform and saf". The weather has heiped. As soon as the big snow of midwinter melted Pending put his short-toothed harrows and rollers at work and they have been scratching and leveling and smoothing these six or seven weeks. The surface of the Howie track today is as level as is that of any other track in the country. No horseman who has so far gone over the track with his testing cane looking for holes or unusually soft places has found any. The going of the backstretch is still faster than the going of the stretch and the turns. It always will be. But there are no longer any abrupt transitions. Possibly no horse that races at Howie this spi ing will succeed in lowering the mile record to 1:40. But after an other summer of showers and sunshine some good horse will run a Howie mile in 1:30. The old mile record of 1 :41 was made by Leeeharea. Possibly the three-quarters record of 1:12% will be cut this year.
