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METROPOLITAN RACING SEASON BEGINS TODAY 9 — _ , Jamaica Throws Open Its Gates for First New York Meeting of 1924 «. Zee and St. James to Meet in ,000 Paumonok Handicap, Opening Day Feature of Excellent Program ♦ NEW YORK, N Y., April 28. — Today at the Jamaica track of the Metropolitan Jockey Club the 1924 racing season in New York will begin. The Paumonok Handicap of ,000. for three-year-clds and over, at three-quarters, will bring together Zev, Americas greatest Money winner, and St. James, one of the most prominent candidates for three-year-old honors this year. Thirteen horses have been named overnight for the Paumonok. including such familiar performers as Little Celt, Swingalong. Dunlin. Miss Star, Prince of Umbria and Mino. but Zev and St. James will be the center of interest. St. James was the largest money winner j among the two-year-olds last year. He work the Futurity at Belmont Park under 130 pounds and was then retired for the year. St. James is one of the leading candidates for the Preakness and Kentucky Perby. The Paumonok will give an index to his quality, although the fact that it is over a sprinting distance makes it someth.ng less than a real trial for longer races like the Preakness and the Derby. Nevertheless a victory over Zev in the Paumonok will give St. James an altogether new importance among the three-year-olds. Zev, as everyone knows, was the champion three-year-old of last year. His only reverse was in the Iatonia Championship when he was thoroughly beaten by In Memoriam. He later beat In Memoriam. in a match race at Churchill Downs. Zev is assigned 130 pounds in the Paumonok. Sprinting is his forte ever, and his partisans expect him to concede the required weight to his opponents and win. If ho fails, his brilliant reputation will suffer. Little Celt, Sandy Mc.Naughtons good four-year-old, is rated closest to Zev in the handicap with 1:2- pounds. Dunlin is in at 110 and St James at 112. The light weight of the band is Ormesvale. which finished second to Lanius in a race at the United Hunts meeting Saturday. He is in at 9:1 pounds. Altogether the Paumonok promises to be an excellent contest and several lreakness and Derby hopes are bound to be discredited in the running. The secondary feature is the Suffolk Selling" Stakes for two-year-olds at five-eighths, which carries an added value of ,000. This : has attracted sixteen juvenile platers of good I quality, including a number of first time starters. Another two-year-old race for maidens closes the card. Eleven youngsters have been entered for this. A number of Preakness and Derby candidates, none of them of the first flight, however, have been named for the Inaugural Burse at five and a half furlongs, an allowance race for three-year-olds, which will open the program. Eaglet, Miss Whisk, Mino, Kings Ransom, and Margin are a few of the better known horses included in this field. The second race is a three-quarter mile dash for platers and the fifth is a similar i race at a mile and seventy yards. There has seldom been as many horses ready to race at the New York tracks at the opening of the season and there is every prospect that the Jamaica meeting will start I the most prosperous turf year that the metro- j politan district has ever enjoyed. Public interest is even greater than usual ; and the first day of the season usually attracts many visitors who do not attend reg-I ularly. Jamaica officials have prepared t " handle a record crowd and if the weather continues pleasant, as expected, there is i every reason to believe that their expectations will be realized.
