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DIXIE HANDICAP PROSPECTS Speculation on Weights for the Big Spring Pimlico Feature. Rancocas Stables Zcr the Logical Top Weight on Strength of His Brilliant Accomplishments of Last Year. If all the cracks that have been entered for the Dixie Stake, to be run at Pimlico next May, leaving out all the small fry, should face the barrier, it would produce a raco that would overshadow any similar event ever staged in the turf world. Most of the big fixtures are limited to horses of the same age, cither for two-year-olds like the Pimlico Futurity, the Walden, tho Westchester Futurity and the Hopeful, or for three-year-olds, as the Preakness, Bel- . mont, Kentucky Derby and Realization, so that bringing three-year-olds and over to- ; gether at a mile and three-sixteenths for an j added stake of 5,000 in the spring of the 1 year, as in the Dixie, is something in the na- ture of a novelty and will attract a much more varied field than if restricted to thoroughbreds of equal maturity. It is well known that many good two-year-olds fail dismally at three, while others show marked improvement over the previous years form, and this fact was strikingly shown in the case of Morvich, which, after an unbeaten career at the earlier age, failed with a single exception, the Kentucky Derby, to live up to his reputation at three. ZEV TROBABLY TOr WEIGHT. The scale of weight-for-age in May, on which the handicapper will bass his figures for the Dixie, at a mile and three-sixteenths, j is 112 pounds for three-year-olds, 127 pounds for four-year-olds and 128 pounds for five and over, with an allowance of five pounds for mares three years old and upward, with a minimum of S4 pounds, thus allowing a comfortable margin for bringing the good, indifferent and bad together. With 118 entries to allot weights to, handicapper Frank J. Bryan will have no difficulty in selecting as top weight the Rancocas Stables four-year-old Zev, the kingpin of last years racers, with Carl Wiedemanns In Memoriam close up second and possibly Admiral Graysons My Own third. Then Walter J. Salmons Preakness winner, Vigil, will undoubtedly come in for a share of attention, while Willis Sharpe Kilmers famous old Exterminator will not be neglected, in spite of the fact he is now in the aged class, the most experienced cam- paigner of them all. Tho Rancocas stable has another formid-j able entry in Crey Lag, which has been j nominated with Zev for the Gold Cup at i Ascot, and one which, on his form, is one , of the best handicap horses in the country. He will certainly be allotted a high weight, as well as the J. S. Cosden standby, Dunlin, one of the big money-winning three-year-olds of last year. Anything from the Greentree and H. P. Whitney stables "must be treated with respect, and Untidy, one of the Greentree entries for the Dixie, was selected as under-: study to Zev in the International Papyrus j match at Belmont Park. In addition to this fast mare the Greentree stable is represented by Rialto, Exodus, I and Cherry Pie, while Harry Payne Whitney J has Enchantment, Flagstaff, Chickvale and I Transmute, all winners in 1923. II. Alter-, mans Homestretch did well at Pimlico last fall, also J. B. Smiths King Solomons Seal, j which Max Hirsch thinks a lot of, while E. Continued on twelfth page.
