view raw text
Here and There on the Turf New Season Opens. Charm of Bowie. The Terminal Course. Beauties of Havana. Today marks the opening of the racing season in the East. Bowie begins the Maryland season and the program that is to be offered is one that will fittingly usher in the big racing. This meeting is to continue until April 13 and during that term there will be many a good one brought out of winter quarters, while it will also mark the initial racing appearance of many a two-year-old that may go on to big things during the racing year. While the winter has been unusually severe and, as a consequence, some of the training operations were hampered, the horses that remained in idleness during the cold months are wonderfully well advanced and all points to good class racing from the beginning. The opening of a racing season is always a big date and nowhere is the thoroughbred given more healthy welcome than in Maryland. For a considerable time horses have been arriving at the Southern Maryland Association track, both from winter quarters and from winter tracks, until it is assured that big fields will be the rule for the meeting. With the horses there have come the jockeys, while Baltimore and Washington have been filling up with enthusiasts who have looked forward eagerly to April 1 and the return of racing. To many in the East, racing begins April 1 and closes November 30 and Bowie is the scene on both occasions. These find the racing season all too short, while the others who have returned from one or the other of the winter tracks and, to whom racing begins January 1 and continues until December 31, never seem to become jaded, but the opening of a spring racing season has a charm that is greater than the opening of any other season and for that reason Bowie will always be tremendously popular. It was John McEntee Bowman who brought the Havana American Jockey Club at Mari anao, near Havana, into new importance. The meeting, just closed, is the first one in which Mr. Bowman was president of the club and it Las passed into history as one of the most successful enjoyed in Cuba for many years. And Mr. Bowman is not through with his plans for Cuban racing. He proposes to add steeplechasing to his program of win l.-r sport and it is a sure thing that this spectacular branch of that turf sport will add preatly to its i opularity. This racing will bring many of the cross country enthusiasts who have had no opportunity to race their horses after the close of the Pimlico meeting in the fall. Winter is the logical season of the year for steeple-chasing, but in this country there is no steeplechasing on any of the winter programs. As a result of this the steeplechasers have to put in their time in the hunting field or at private schooling grounds. With steeplechas ing at the beautiful Marianao course it will become possible to keep the steeplechaser profitably employed, while at the same time it will afford an added attraction that cannot fail to become tremendously popular with the racing crowds. One has to visit the course of the Havana American Jockey Club to thoroughly appre ciate its beauty and realise how ideally it is situated. Of easy motor distance from Havana, the entrances are by winding, well-paved drives through grounds ornate with shrubs and flowers of every hue and fragrance. Then the track proper is laid out in a natural bowl so that from any point on the stands and lawns there is a perfect view of every part of the track. The finish is directly in front of the grandstand while the clubhouse, with its own spacious stands, is some slight distance up the stretch. There, under the grateful shade of wide, richly fur nished verandas, no more comfortable spot could be imagined to view the sport. The paddock is still further up the stretch, so that both clubhouse and grandstand patrons have a view of the horses as they leave the paddock to parade to the post. The stands proper have every comfort and convenience for the public, but it is the clubhouse that is the real show place of the club. No more ornate building can be found on any race course and no clubhouse is more sumptuously appointed and furnished. From grill to roof it is a veritable show place and its patrons have racing as only a part of the entertainment. Social functions abound all through the meeting and many of the bachelor sportsmen tak? up quarters in the magnificent mites for the meeting.
