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Twenty Years Ago Today Chief Turf Events of Dec 27, 1902 The agitation in favor of a racing law in Pennsylvania has reached such a point that it is confidently believed that a bill will pass the legislature. Top Gallant, nineteen years old, by Sterling Sea Mark, by Adventure, died at Willamette Stud. He was owned by J. B. Ewing and was the sire of such good performers as Sidney Lucas, Algol, Typhoon H., Topsoil and Ona-tas. It is said that Tod Sloan will not return to this country this winter at all. A friend of the former lightweight jockey says that Tod has practically given up all hope of ever riding again, as there seems to be no chance of reinstatement at the hands of the English Jockey Club. According to a report Volodyovski, which won the Epsom Derby in 1901 in the colors of W. C. Whitney, wall be taken this week to the stud at Theobalds by trainer John Hug-gins. Mr. Whitneys lease of the noted horses running qualities, which he secured from Lady Meux, has expired. Turfmen are almost a unit in predicting that Arthur Iicdfern, who will ride for Mr. W. C. Whitney, will easily be the star jockey in this country. Last season he had practically only Lucien Lyne to deal with and on many occasions he clearly outrode the Keene jockey. With Lyne on the other side it is confidently believed that Rcdfern will have things his own way. John E. McDonald has about decided to retire his old mare Belle of Troy, and in that event will, of course, send her to the Oak-wood Stud of his friend C. F. McMeekin in Kentucky. Whether he will breed her to one of the Oakwood sires Bowling Brook or St. Florian has not been decided upon. His own stallion, Rensselaer, by Hayden Edwards The Belle, is also at Oakwood. Mrs. L. Curtis, owner of the crack two-year-old filly Eugenia Burch, is spending the winter at New Orlaens. She says that she will have eight two-year-olds in training next year and expects to have a useful stable. Mrs. Curtis, it will be recalled, paid 75 for Eugenia Burch as a yearling and the filly won 5,000 in stakes during the recent campaign. John Skain, administrator for the estate of the late Lexington turfman James Murphy, has learned that the race horse Fred Ackerman was sold by Murphy to Thomas Hitchcock, Jr., of New York for S1.000 cash last summer. H. D. Mclntyre, secretary of ,the Brooklyn Jockey Club, furnished Skain with this information. The horse was missed by Skain and he did not know what became of him. John E. Madden will probably have 100 thoroughbreds in training next year. Seventy-five or eighty of these arc two-year-olds and they will be reduced to about twenty for the eastern campaign, the best of the others to be placed on the western circuit. Madden has set his heart on winning the Futurity with a colt bred at Hamburg Place. He has already trained two Futurity winners, but he says he will not be satisfied until a youngster from his own big breeding establishment has landed the big prize at Sheepshead Bay.