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■ ■ Here and There on the Turf - Bowies Last Saturday. Distance Racing. Harford Handicap Entries. Harlan and Single Foot. It was fitting that the Southern Maryland Association should have a bright Saturday for its last half holiday. There could have been no more delightful weather for the sport and never before was there such a gathering there 5-of lovers of the sport. The meeting had been serioutly handicapped in a weather way, begin- ning with the necessity of a two days post ponement of the opening and raw weather day after day, but all through there was a surprisingly large attendance, but the climax came with the racing of Saturday. And it was racing that was worthy of the gathering. Bowie has not been blessed with the class of horses that the racing deserved, but Joseph McLennan obtained excellent results with the material at hand. He has a fashion of doing more with horses than any other secretary and there was evidence of what could be done when he put on two races over the mile and a half distance Saturday. True, they were claiming races that did not attract much in the way of good class horses, f but as spectacles they were tremendously pop n ular with thi: racing crowd and they meant f something. They were races that afforded a r real test for both horses and riders and the r class of horses made little difference. It has always been the desire of Mr. McLen- t nan to run races over a considerable distance 1 of ground and he has shown that could be f done in April. Other secretaries with later 1 meetings ;ire prone to offer the excuse that 1 it is too early in the year to ask horses to do other than sprint and for that reason they j frame programs with the trifling distances pre- j dominating. 1 On April 12, with one race for two year olds, the Bowie program carried, besides the two races at a mile and a half each, a ,000 handicap of a mile and a sixteenth and a claiming I race of a mile and seventy yards, making four of the seven races at a distance greater than 1 a mile. With Bowie closing Tuesday, interest swing? l over to the Havre de Grace meeting of the • Harford Association. That meeting wdl bring 5 out a better class of horses than have been i shown thus far in Maryland, but it is doubtful 1 if the racing will be any more interesting. . After all it is the contest that counts and there ? has been no end of fighting contests during the Bowie meeting. The Harford Handicap, 1. that features the first day at Havre de Grace, ■, gives pMMM of bringing together one of the c best fields that ever paraded for the races and i it has attracted some of the be.-t horses entered - during its history. Ninety-seven were e named for this handicap and it was a tremendous y task to handicap such a number. There should be a big field at post time, but t it is unfortunate that many horses were en 1 tered merely for the purpose of obtaining the e opinion of the handicapper. That is evidence enough of the evil of free • entry to handicaps. It merely adds tre t- mcndou ly to the work of the handicapper and d really serves no good purpose, for any owner ■r with a serious intention of starting his horse • can never object to an entrance fee. With free entry there is no index of what it the entry box will bring forth, for the reason n that a flood of entries come and frequently y tome of the horses that are entered are not ;t even on the ground and many of them are far ir from being ready. 8- 8— 9— 1— i 2 2-3- 3 4 4- 5- 5— 6 6- 7 7 8 8— 9 9- 1 ! 2 2 3 I 4 A I 5 6 and ■ 7 7. 8 r 1 9 9 1 1 2 2 3 3 £ 4 4 j 5 5 r 6 6 i 7 7 f n f r r t 1 f 1 1 j j 1 I 1 l • 5 i 1 . ? 1. ■, c i - e y t 1 e • t- d ■r • it n y ;t far ir It is fortunate that fair weather has come for the Havre de Grace opening, for it means 4 much in the success of the steeplechasing. The field at that track is frequently deep and it c requires a deal of fair weather to make it really safe for jumpers. 1 The steeplechasing will be of more interest ■ this year, as has been told frequently before. i It means much for the future of the sport 1 for there have been various importations that have brought the number of jumpers up to a number seldom seen before in this country. The importations were made of horses of proved worth in England, Ireland and France, and Havre de Grace gives the first opportunity they will have to show their worth. The fact that the Green Spring Valley Stee-j, plechase of the Maryland Jockey Club at-: traded the unheard of number of 121 nomi-! nations is the best index of the number of the jumpers in training and it is natural to ex-! pect that Havre de Grace will have its full share, even though they should only be raced there in preparation for what is to come at Pimlico. From time immemorial it has been the fash ion when a good colt or filly is shown for the report to go abroad that there was a better one in the stable. Morvich was sold because Runstar was considered a better horse, and just for that Morvich was not beaten as a two year old and began his three-year old year brilliantly by winning the Kentucky Derby. Runstar has finally proved that there may have been reason to consider him better than Morvich. He was winner of the Coffroth Han dicap, but that is a small matter compared with the Kentucky Derby er with the brilliant j two year old achievements of Morvich. This case is only mentioned for the reason of its being a recent example of the age old custom of telling of a better one than the horse generally considered as the stable chain pion. 1 Before the running of the first race at Bowie • , Saturday all one could hear was that J. E. . Griffiths Harlan was a better colt than Single Foot, holder of the half mile track record. They • are both in the same stable and Single Foot, , by a brilliant performance, was easily the I most sensational two year old that had been 1 shown at the meeting. The race result did not threaten the reputa- tion of Single Foot for the best that Harlan 1 could accomplish was to finish third to Barney r 4 c 1 ■ i 1 Google and Bother and the race was run in 48 seconds over a track that was faster than when Single Foot established his track record of 47%. Harlan may be a good colt, but, on paper at least, his stablemate is better, for another angle is that Single Foot beat Barney Google in his record making performance with the utmost ease. a
