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Here and There on the Turf Gaffsman s Good Race. Chance in the Dixie. Myra M.s Good Score. That Delaware Defeat. • 9 One of the worthwhile candidates for the mile and three-sixteenths of the 5,000 Dixie Handicap of the Maryland Jockey Club showed a readiness for the rich Pimlico test at Bowie Saturday. This one was Gaffsman, the four-year-olds son of Jim Gaffney — Fi-lante, which races for the Seagram Stable. It is admitted that Gaffsman was favored in the mile and a sixteenth of the Prince Georges Handicap, in which he was a galloping winner, by reason of the sloppy condition of the track, but he is a colt of undoubted class and should the Pimlico going be wet or dry on May 2, he should give an excellent account of himself. Gaffsman was handicapped in the Dixie Handicap at 109 pounds, and the Saturday score will improse a three pound penalty, bringing his impost to 112, but he carried 118 Saturday and made a show of his opponents. It was a race to show conclusively that Bringloe has the colt in excellent condition and that he suffered no ill effects from his long trip across the continent after his Tijuana campaign. With the others in the Canadian stable, Gaffsman has been moved over to Havre de Grace and there will be an opportunity, at that meeting, which is to begin next Saturday, to still further prepare for the Dixie Handicap. What is of the greatest importance at this time is that the colt is at himself and he is fit and ready to give a good account of himself over the Dixie Handicap route. The miserable weather that has prevailed almost continuously since the opening of the Bowie meeting, and the consequent bad track conditions that have prevailed, has just about shown the futulity of attempting to arrange any sort of a stake program for the early days in April. That is to say, the futulity of offering priies that will bring the best horses to1 gether so early in the racing season. For the most part of the present meeting no prize, however attractive, could bring out the best horses to race through the difficult go ing and better results are obtained with overnight races. It is safe to promise that an elimination of the spring stakes, or the converting of them into overnight races, would bring about more satisfactory results. This same stake money could be better employed by the increasing of some of the overnight purses until they would take on the importance of special features. That would probably meet with the hearty approval of a majority of the sj ortsmen. for it would mean a much wider distribution of the purse money. The wise secretary makes a study of the horses on hand in the arranging of his pro grams, and the successful official, who knows of the material on hand, can so arrange the conditions that good sport results. That is more applicable to the early spring and the late fall race meetings than those of any other time in the year, and Bowie, owning and closing the Maryland season, has more excuse than any of the others for the playing up of the overnight races and the slighting of the stakes. When Frank Kearns Myra M. was winnner of the three-quarters mile dash of the Old Dominion Purse at Bowie Saturday, it marked her third consecutive score at the meeting. The daughter of Sir John Johnson — Even Money has been started four times and her only defeat was on the occasion of her first outing. Myra M. is one filly which has been tremendously benefited by the muddy track condition that has prevailed through the season. And there was another reason for the success of Myra M. That was in the fact that she was brought to the raxes fit and she caught some better horses that were not entirely tightened up for best racing efforts. Possibly several of these that have been beaten by Myra M. will beat her later in the season, but she has had the "jump" on them in the matter of conditions at the Bowie course. The manner in which Myra M. has been win- | ning makes her a real Bowie performer and it I gets back to that old "horses for courses, and I courses for horses that applies with such force at Bowie. Race King ran a dead heat with the mighty Sysonby in the 1905 running of the Metropolitan Handicap at Belmont Park, but later in the year he would not have the ghost of a chance against the son of Melton and Optime. It was just the case of a seasoned horse beating a much better one that had not been seasoned. Race King had been campaigned at the old Benning course of the Washington Jockey Club before being sent to New York, while Sysonby was coming out of winter retirement and he needed that race to put the final edge on his condition. One of the greatest benefits that has come from the harmony that exists among the van ous Illinois courses and between those tracks and the Kentucky tracks, is shown in the proposed arrangement of the dates for the special prizes. Thrs? tracks in both states are mak ing their stake plans in a manner that will, as far as is possible, avoid all conflict of dates. By this harmonious arrangement of the dates, it becomes possible for the good horse to make them one after another and, accordingly, have that much better chance to estab- lish a winning record, but at the same time pile up a big figure for the earnings. In these days of exalted prizes it will become possible this year for the best three-year-old to make a tremendously big score simply with the spring racing. Then the same plan will be observed right through the racing year and it will be found that this lack of conflict in big prizes will make for better eon-tests and a full measure of success for the various racing organizations. Of course it is regretted that the racing laws for Delaware failed of enactment, but the sportsmen of that state have reason to feel encouraged by the showing made in the fight to obtain its passage. As has been published, the bill passed the upper house by a vote of 9 to 7, while in the lower house it battled to a dead heat or a tie vote. The legislature has adjourned and it will be two years before there will come another chance to have the law enacted. This battle so bravely fought, even though lost, would tend to show that a unity of purpose among the sportsmen of Delaware will bring the racing to that state. There should be no letting down at this time in the campaign for Delaware racing and, with two years in which to carry on the campaign, the result should be a victory at the next attempt. This victory can only be brought about by the combined efforts of all the friends of racing in the state and it has been quite conclusively shown that there are enough of them, if they work for a common purpose, to make that state a valuable addition to the racing column.
