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Here and There on the Turf McLennan s Good Programs. Distance Racing and Training. Allowances at Bowie. Joseph McLennan has from time to time demonstrated that it is possible to frame racing programs that will fill well and at the same time provide for races over adequate distances. He does not have to cater to the five and a half furlongs and three-quarters brigades for his material and some of his best work is done at meetings that come at a season of the year when there is more excuse for the short races than at any other time. He has issued his book for the Bowie meeting of the Southern Maryland Agricultural Association, which opens April 1, and has carried his usual plan. With the exception of the opening day, there are at least three of the seven races that arc at distances greater than a mile and, with a two-year-old race as a part of the program, it makes the program really more creditable in the number of considerable distance races. Several races are framed at the nrle and an eighth route and the last race of the meeting is at a mile and a half for the selling platers. Mr. McLennan has demonstrated that it -is possible to fill these racss well with horses of every grade and when platers of only a sprinting reputation reach Bowie it is frequently found that they can go on, but they had not been trained for such racing. It is an easier and a lazier proposition to teach a horse to race three-quarters than to fit him for a mile and a quarter. When the trainers themselves make programs there will be few chances indeed for the horses that show to best advantage at a mile or greater distance. Mr. McLennan has an excellent track rule 1h at he keeps wonderfully in filling thsse races, and it could be used to good advantage elsewhere to induce trainers to teach their horses better racing distances. This rule, there is an allowance that may be claimed without respect to any other abwancc that a horse may enjoy. This is a weight advantage for horses that have never won over such a distance. The allowances arc that thrce-ycar-olds never having won a race at a mils or over shal be allowed three pounds, while four-year-olds and over with the same qualifications arc abwci! five pounds. Maiden races are excepted to make the range of the allowances still wider. This is an inducement that helps fill such races and the fact that the younger horse has a lesser advantage than the older is also a happy arrangement. The three-year-old that has not won at a mile still has a better chance to win over that distance than the older horse that has never progressed so far successfully. t , ;
