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KENTUCKY SPRING RACING COMMENCES TODAY = — _® ♦ LEXINGTON INAUGURAL Attractive Eight-Race Program Makes Up Initial Offering. » Fifteen Named for Camden Handicap Stake Feature — Plant in Spic and Span Condition. • LEXIXGTOX, Ky.. April 20.— With springlike weather prevailing, an exceptional program of eight races arranged r.nd interest at an exceedingly lofty level, prospects for an unusually successful inauguration of the 192S season of racing in this state tomorrow are unusually bright. The meeting which will be ushered in at the local Kentucky Association course, the oldest in America, will be one of thirteen days, terminating on May 5. Following the local racing comes a twenty-three day meeting, opening at Churchill Downs, Louisville. May 8 and on June 5. twenty-nine days of racing will be inaugurated at Latonia. The summer will bring meetings at Raceland and Dade Tark in order mentioned. The Kentucky Association has arranged a brilliant offering for the initial days racing. A renewal of the ,000 added Camden Handicap, which had its first running in 1910. will serve as the principal feature and will be strongly supported by seven additional contests, many of which are fashioned for the better grade of racers. Three-year-olds and over will meet in the headliner at one mile and a sixteenth, and for which there were fifteen acceptances over night. Oaks candidates are brought together in the Oaks Trial, or fourth race, at the futurity course distance, for the purpose of providing what it expected to prove one of the best races of the day. This race, however, probably will not overshadow the Xicholasville Purse at one mile for three-year-olds and over, and much interest will be attached to the Harrodsburg Purse, at a half mile, for two-year-olds. EIGHT RACES. The program of eight races is an innovation here and will prevail on each of the five days of the meeting on which a stake event will be contested. An additional feature of the opening program will be the introduction of the Jarvis starting gate for the first time on any race course. This devise will be utilized in effecting the start of the third race, at a mile and sixteenth, for platers. Xever before in the memory of the horsemen and officials of the local track has a greater number of horses foregathered for an impending meeting. The great colony which has long taxed the capacity of the track stables and numerous privately owned barns adjacent to the course is regarded as classy, as it is large, and the renewals of the Camden Handicap, Ben Ali Handicap. Ashland Oaks, Idle Hour Stakes and Hinata Stakes, as well as the more important overnight overnight races, seem destined to attract some of the most capable fields in their history. The five mentioned stakes make up a complete list of the principal fatures of the thirteen-day meeting. S. Bewail Combs, president ; Thomas S. Scott, general .manager, arid others of the tracks official family, have carried out every preparation for the meeting and the inaugural will find the popular course in a higher state of efficiency and completeness than ever before. Considerable money was expended in redressing the grandstand and other buildings and other betterments were made at no small cost. Both Messrs. Combs and Scott are confident that, with any degree of favorable weather, the meeting will prove on the best ever conducted here. POST TIME 2:00. For the present the field for the opening race will be called to the post at 2 oclock daily. Efforts to speed along the larger stake day programs will be made and the management is hopeful of presenting the eight race offerings in little more time than will be required for the smaller cards. Officials for the meeting were at the track today. Racing secretary W. H. Shelley and his staff went through a heavy days work. They completed the handling of every preliminary detail and were ready for the seasons opening. Mr. Shelley, with T. C. Bradley and J. J. Oraddy, will serve in the stewards stand, while X. H. McLelland, Robert S. Shelley and .1. S. Wallace are the placing judges. William Hamilton will again be in charge of the starting, with Dr. J. T. Chawk as paddock judge ; S. K. Hughes, timer, and Brownell Berry man, patrol judge. Col. M. J. Winn, managing director of the American Turf Association, is expected to attend the opening. He will witness the Continued on fourteenth page. LEXINGTON INAUGURAL Continued from first page. operation of the Jarvis-Waggoner gate, which, it is said, will probably be adopted for use at Churchill Downs, Latonia, Lincoln Fields and other tracks if it is found ; radical here. Indications are that enthusiasts from Louisville, Cincinnati, Covington and other points throughout the Ohio Valley and blue grass district will be more numerous for the opening than ever before. Every arrangement for their comfort and speedy transportation has been made. Mose Cossman, business agent for the Idle Hour Stock Farm Stable, is an arrival to remain until the main division of that establishment is shipped to Maryland. H. J. Thompson expects to get away with this section of the stable about May 1. Five horses make up the stable O* A ; Bianchi is handling at this time.
