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Here and There on the Turf Bowie Racing Popular. Fitness of Winter Idlers. Quatrain for Preakness. Donaghee a Menace. One of the big evidences of the eagerness with which the new season of racing was welcomed back was the fact that no fewer than 380 New Yorkers patronized the special. That means much when it is considered that Bowie is a good five hours from New York. Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, Wilmington and all the other important points were numerously represented in that immense opening day gathering and the racing never had a more auspicious beginning in any year of the Maryland field. Another feature of the new meeting was the success that came to horses that had not raced through the winter months. It was evidence of the excellence of Bowie as a winter raining ground and of the skill of the trainers. Reck Man, winner of the two-year-old dash, was making his first start, and he fought it out with Harvey Stedman and You-are, two others that were bearing silks for the first time. Then in the second race the three placed horses -Sea Sand, Dream of the Valley and Jacques, were all prepared at Bowie, rather than having been campaigned through the winter. Merrimac, winner of the third, had been rested through the cold months and he beat Despair, one that raced at New Orleans, m the running of the third race. Then in the fourth H. P. Whitneys Noah, one that had idled, beat Myrtle Belle, a filly that was something of a sensation at Miami. Leopardess, winner of the Inaugural Handi cap, had a New Orleans reasoning, but Dcna-ghee and Tester, the cnes to chase her home, were coming out of winter retirement. Then in the remaining two races horses from New Orleans filled the place positions. Altogether the horses that had been rested showed to distinct advantage and it is natural to expect that they will improve. They at least have a better chance to improve than those that have had hard campaigning. There is general satisfaction and congratulation over the fact that Frederick Johnsons Louisiana Derby winner Quatrain is intended for the Preakness Stakes of the Maryland Jockey Club at Pimlico. Quatrain has been named for this 0,000 race, which is to be decided May 8 and it is probable that he will be shown at the Havre de Grace meeting before that engagement falls due. Several others will make an effort to duplicate the memorable double of Sir Barton when he won both a Preakness Stakes and a Kentucky Derby, but the fact that Quatrain had been shipped from New Orleans to Kentucky instead of to Maryland suggested that he would not be raced at Pimlico. J. E. Grif fiths Single Foot is another that ii to try for both big races, and there are others, both in Kentucky and Maryland, lhat are meant fur a like campaign. Harry Stutts, who rede so well at the Miami meeting, began his Bowie season auspiciously when he was on winners of two races. Stutts will find a keener competition in Maryland than he did in Florida, but he has skill and courage that recommends him in any company and he surely will not want for oppor tunity. There have been no fewer than seventy one licenses issued to riders in Maryland already. It is probable that most, if not all, of them will be seen wearing colors at the present meeting. Andy Schuttinger may not accept mounts until the Havre de Grace meeting, when the Xalapa Farm Stable will begin its campaign. Schuttinger was seriously ill during the winter, but he has entirely recovered and is busily engaged assisting James McClelland and Roy Waldron in the preparation of the horses. It is worth while news to know lhat Vincent Powers has not given up the saddle. Powers j has been training the steeplechase string of the Greentree Stable skillfully for some time, and that is about enough occupation for any | one man, but Powers has taken out a jockey. I license from the National Steeplechase and I Hunt Association and he will be seen with j the silks up in most of the important stakes. i Powers was a rider of high skill on the flat : before he joined the ranks of cross-country rid- j ers and displayed a like skill over jumps, making him a valuable asset to the Grecntre? , I Stable. While the schooling of Donaghee was sup- I posed to have sweetened his uncertain temper. i there was no evidence of his improvement when he was sent to the post for the Inaugural i Handicap at Bowie Wednesday. He was guilty J of about all the mean tricks known to a thoroughbred, before the post was reached, and, I ! while he may be sweet tempered in the steeple-1 chase field, he is surely an unruly brute on the track. Donaghee has reached an age when it may be next to impossible to make a gentle I man of liim, and he had better be sentenced to the field. He is a horse of undoubted good c!a s and is apt to beat a high class horse any time he behaves himself, but he is more or less of a menace to the other horses and his uncertain temper prevents his ever becoming other than utterly unreliable. Like same other bad actors, Donaghee is I usually away from the barrier "winging" or j | left at the post. That is enough to bar him from racing on the flat. He may have certain stake engagements to fill where he has a contract right to be started, but it would be just as well if he could be barred Irom ail other flat races. It is not fair to other trainers and other horses that a rogue like Donaghee should be tolerated, and many a horse not anything like as guilty of misbehavior as he. has been ban-iished. By all means race Donaghee through the field, and give him a chance to break his neck. He interferes seriotrJy with the chances of other horses on the flat and that more than offsets any racing ability that he may possess.
