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i ! ; ! LA UREL S-AMBITIOUS PLANS WASHINGTON HANDICAP OF 5,000 ADDED TO SETTLE THREE-YEAR-OLD SUPREMACY OF YEAR AMONG RICHLY ENDOYED STAKES TO BE RUN DURING MONTH OF OCTOBER LAUREL Md.. July 27. Anticipating a banner race meeting at Laurel Park in October, president Spalding Lowe Jenkins of the Maryland State Fair Association has become ambitious to have the championship among the thrce-ycar-olds and over for 1922 settled at this popular Maryland course. With this end in view the management has added a new stake to the list of offerings for the October meeting, which starts on Tuesday, October 3. and ends on Saturday, October 28. The association will hang up an added stake of 5,000 for a feature to be known as the Washington Handicap and this rich prize is expected to Dring the pick of the handicap division of the year. The race will be a handicap at one mile and a quarter. To use a trite expression, time and trials will tell which is the real champion, and to this end the 5,000 stake will be hung up on the last day of the Laurel meeting, with the hope that the best horse of the three-year-olds and over will be there and show his superiority over the others. There will be no reason for anyone not getting his chance, for the stakes now announced will not close until Thursday, August 21. The Maryland Handicap of 0,000 will be the last stake exclusively for three -year-olds to be run in the East this year. At the present time there is no decided opinion as to which may be the best of the three-year-olds of 1922, because there are .some supposed stars that have not yet had a real chance. Of course, the coming meeting at Saratoga is expected to show up some of these who have not yet had real trials, including Harry Payne Whitneys Bunting and the Lexington Stables Lucky Hour and My Play. Of course, at the start of the year Morvich was hailed as a worthy successor of Man o War and after he had won the Kentucky Derby he still further added to his prestige. Then Snob II. loomed as something of a speed marvel and there was much talk of his possible ability to take the measure of Ben Blocks Derby winner. And then along comes Mr. Whitneys Whiskaway, and he not only beats Morvich and Snob II. in the running of the Carlton Stakes over the mile at Aqueduct, but goes on farther to win the 0,000 Special at Latonia. it was in the Carlton that Morvich met the first defeat of his career and again in the Kentucky Special that he failed to come up to expectations. Notwithstanding the fact that he lest these races and also lost a lot of his prestige, Ben Block, his owner, and Fred Bur-lew, his trainer, still believe that lie will retrieve this lost prestige before the year is over and to this end he will have a thorough preparation for the three-year-old stakes to be decided later. And all this time James Rowe, the. master hand who rules over the Whitney stable, has been telling his friends that Bunting is a better threeryear-old than any of them. During the Laurel meeting the Maryland State Fair Association will hang up the big sum of 00,000, more than a quarter of a million, in stakes and purses. There will be no stake with less than. , 000 added money and there will be no overnight purse less than ,300. The overnight purses will be of ,300, ,500, ,000 and ,500 added value. There will be other innovations at this years Laurel meeting. It is announced that with the exception of the Capital Handicap for three-year-olds and upward, which is a sprinting dash three-quarters of a mile with ,000 added, to be run on the opening day, all other stake events will be run on Saturdays, and the Laurel meeting will have four Saturdays. This will give horsemen who have their thoroughbreds entered In the various events plenty of time between one and another of these stake engagements. Another innovation and a good rule of the Maryland State Fair Association for Laurel is that in all stakes the starters must be named through the entry box the day before the race at the usual time of closing. Those who enter will incur no liability or any starting fees, for they will net have to pay such fees unless the horses they name are starters. They will have the usual privilege of scratching on the day of the race. This new rule of this association will do away with that bad practice of adding starters on the afternoon of the race, a practice that has long been deplored and yet sanctioned on the eastern tracks and one which has been most unsatisfactory to the public. In addition to the 5,000 Washington Handicap, Laurel offers two 0,000 stakes and five stakes with ,000 added to each. One of the 0,000 stakes is the Maryland Handicap for three-year-olds, to go -a mile and a quarter, and this race is to be run on Saturday, October 14, two weeks ahead of the 5,000 Washington Handicap. The other is the Laurel Stakes, which vill prove most Interesting because it is a condition affair for all ages from the two-year-olds up, to race over the mile distance. On the program will also be two ,000 events for the jumpers, these being the Chevy Chase Steeplechase Handicap and the Patuxent Steeplechase Handicap, the first being for four-year-olds and over and the second for three-year-olds and over. The following are the stakes to be run at the meeting, exclusive of several rich overnight events: Tuesday, October 3. The Capital Handicap. Three-year-olds and upward. ,000 added. Six fur- "saturday, October t. The National. Conditions. Two-year-olds. ,000 added. Sir furlongs. Saturday, October 11. Chevy Chase Steeplechase Handicap. Four-year-olda and upward. ,000 added. About two miles and a half. Saturday, October 14. The Maryland Handicap. Three-year-olds. 0,000 added. One mile and a juarter. Saturday, October 21. The Patuxent Steeplechase Handicap. Three-year-olds and upward. ,000 udded. About two miles. Saturday, October 21. The I.-inrel. Conditions. All aces. 0,000 Added. One mile. Saturday, October 28. The Manor Handicap. Two-year-olds. ,000 added. One mile. Saturday, October 28. The Washington Handicap. Three-ycar-olda and upward. 5,000 added. One mile and a quarter. Col. Matt J. Winn, general manager of all of the Kentucky Jockey Clubs tracks, who is now in the East, met with the directors of the Laurel track and told Spalding Lowe Jenkins, president and general manager of the Maryland State Fair Association, that now that he knows the dates for the stakes to be given there will be no confliction with any of the big events during the running of the meeting at Latonia, where racing will be going on simultaneously with Laurel.
