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EPINARD RACES TODAY Named as Starter in the 0,000 Added Laurel Stakes. Wise Counsellor, My Play, Rustic, Single Foot and Initiate Among His Prospective Opponents. LAUREL, Md., Oct 17. Nine horses ar named overnight to compete against Epinard in the 0,000 added Laurel Stakes tomorrow afternoon. Ladkin is missing from the prob-able starters. Most formidable in public estimation of the nine prospective opponents is Wise Counsellor, conqueror of the French horse in the first of his races in this country. Barring accident, Wise Counsellor is a sur starter. He has been on the ground a week training under the eye of John S. Ward. H has done nothing sensational, but has shown that he is fit to run his best race. Probably a lesson of the spring is fresh in the mind oi the trainer of the son ofRustle. Wise Counsellor came to Pimlico in May to strive foi the Preakness Stakes. He worked .half a mile around the turn and down the straightaway to the stewards stand faster than was believed possible over the Baltimore course, bul developed nervousness after that trial and did not get to the Preakness post. No such mistake has been made this fall. EPINARD SHOULD WIN P.P. Horso Jockey Wt. 1 Big Blaze 110 2 My Play A. Schuttingcr .123 3 Hurry Inn ...J. Stevens ... 87 4 Single Foot . . .15. Brenning ... 08 5 Initiato T. Pnrko 107 0 Wise Counslr.S. ODonncll ...120 7 Rustic G. Babin 110 8 Epinard C. Kummer ...118 9 Sun Flag T. Maiben 117 10 Donaghee J. Wallace 114 Epinard comes up to the race without an excuse. He arrived hero Thursday morning and was exhibited in the afternoon. This morning Eugene Leigh sent Pierre Werthei-mers pride to the track for a short and slow gallop. Beginning at the five-eighths post, the Frenchman went a quarter in :26, three-eighths in :39 and a half in :52 and finished out the five-eighths in the same pace, completing the distance in 1 :08. Epinard needs no tightening work for his engagement tomorrow. He is carrying no superfluous flesh. In fact, he is a little light to please most of the commenters who have looked upon him. Epinard, however, is in the hands of a master who knows his horse. FltENCHMANS OPPONENTS. Aside from Wise Counsellor there does not seem to be among the Laurel entries a worthy foeman for Epinard. This impression may be wrong, however. My Play, the Lexington stable candidate, was beaten badly in the third of the International Specials, but must be accorded a chance in the Laurel. Sun Flag is apt to beat any mans horse at a mile if he runs to his best form. Single Foot, the juvenile star of Marylands spring and autumn racing, has trained well for his race against the foreigner. His con nections are sweet on his chances. Initiate has won her only three starts at the meeting. No one knows how good the Whitney filly may be at the current time. Rustic won his last start. So did Hurry Inn. Big Blaze and Donaghee are the others. Big Blaze is not considered seriously. Donaghee will not go. Ho was shipped today to Empire City to carry the silks of J. W. Bean in the handicap at that course. Epinard, by any sort of reckoning, has the best of the weights in the stake because he has not won a race this year. He gets in under 116 pounds and by the scale is set to receive ten pounds from Wise Counsellor to which he gave five pounds and was only beaten by a nose in the first of the International Specials at Belmont Park in September. Wise Counsellor is a three-year-old, one year younger than Epinard, and will carry 120 pounds if he races tomorrow. Post positions, to a slight degree, may offset Epi-nards advantage in weight. He drew No. 8, which will be next to the outside in the field of ten, since Donaghee, the outside horse, will be an absentee. It is only a sixteenth of a mile from the mile starting post at Laurel to the first turn. Unless he is off well the French horse will be out of luck for an early position. Clarence Kummer wired Eugene Leigh7"an-nouncing that he would leave New York tomorrow morning at 8:30 to fill his engagement to ride Epinard in the Laurel Stakes tomorrow.
