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♦ - » Here and There on the Turf Handicaps of Bowie. Havre de Grace Prospects. Candy Queens Progress. Crusader and His Chance. • • Bowie has frequently suffered serious handicap by reason of inclement weather and bad track conditions, but no reason can be remembered when there was such a continuous condition as has existed for the present meeting. This naturally has kept the good horses in the stables and it has prevented the showing of many of the most promising two-year-olds. These baby racers are fit and ready to go to the post, but trainers are not to be blamed for refusing to race them through the deep, holding mud that has prevailed. The law of averages should bring relief before many days, but just when Dick Pending had brought the racing strip to its best condition it was disappointing, indeed, that there should come the rainy, cold spell that spoiled it all for him. This same condition of weather has been something of a handicap to the trainers at both Pimlico and Havre de Grace, where there are many racing strings being made ready. It is always possible to gallop horses through muddy tracks, but it is impossible to sharpen up the speed of a horse. The training has reached the stage where speed tests are of value and the handicap in Maryland at present is even more far reaching than the handicap to the actual racing. The entries that were received for the Havre de Grace meeting of the Harford Association, which begins at the Maryland course on April 16, indicate that more and better horses will perform than ever before at a spring meeting there. What is of especial interest is the liberal response to the Chesapeake, the three-year-old test that is more or less of a trial for the 0,000 Preaknes Stakes of the Maryland Jockey Club, to be run at Pimlico May 9. The nominations for this running are greatly in excess of those of other seasons and it is an indication that many of the best three-year-olds are to be uncovered at the meeting. And it shows more for it is an indication that a great many of these will be at Havre de Grace as an important part of the preparation for the big three-year-old classics later in the year. The offerings of the Harford Association are of a liberality to warrant careful preparation for their running, but the meeting comes so early in the racing year that such races serve the double purpose of tightening up the good ones for such races as the Preak-ness Stakes. Kentucky Derby, Withers Stakes, Belmont Stakes and the other big spring prizes for three-year -olds. It is unusual for S. C. Hildreth to show any of the Rancocas Stable horses at the Havre de Grace spring meeting, but he has made many nominations for the season soon to open and he contemplates a campaign there this year. H. T. Archibald is another liberal nominator, while Samuel D. Riddle promises to begin his 1927 campaign at the same meeting. While it has been intimated that H. T. Archibalds Candy Queen will be reserved for the Kentucky Oaks, it is doubtful if there is a candidate for the Kentucky Derby that is further advanced in preparation and she may be sent to the post in an effort to duplicate the victory of Harry Payne Whitneys Regret in 1915. It moat be agreed that Candy Queen is better equipped to beat the colts, on her showing of last year than any other of the fillies. She has come out of winter retirement with all of her speed and she has done what has been asked in a training way brilliantly. But Candy Queen is a small filly and if she should show an ability to beat the colts it will be doubly surprising for that reason. Of course Fair Star, by her victory in the Pimlico Futurity, took a place at the top of the juvenile misses in point of money earned in 1926, but Candy Queen really accomplished much more in a racing way last season than did Mr. DuPonts good filly. That is to say she met stiff er opposition about the New York courses and her racing record last year was a truly impressive one. Possessed of a great turn of speed she has shown already this spring that she is capable of carrying on and, as a matter of fact, the only possible bar to her full measure of greatness is her lack of size. The coming of the Samuel D. Riddle horses to Havre de Grace and the shipment of a division of the Walter M. Jeffords horses to Pimlico, gives both of those Maryland training grounds a new importance. These horses in both strings were well advanced in their training before being shipped from Berlin, where they are wintered and this disposition of the two strings gives an idea of the campaign plans. It would appear that the Jeffords horses will not be seen in action until the opening of Pimlico and it may mean that Scapa Flow is intended for the Preakness though there has been no announcement made of the stable plans for the winner of the Futurity. In the Riddle lot now at Havre de Grace, there is Crusader, now a four-year-old, and he is indeed a notable addition to the handicap division of any course. At this time a year ago, American Flag was the handicap hope of the stable, as well he might be on his three year-old record. American Flag did not carry on as it was hoped he would. Now Crusader has his opportunity and, taking the same line through the three-year-old racing, he is even a more promising prospect than was American Flag.
