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►— • Here and There on the Turf I i Churchill Downs, the famous old Louis-Yille course, opened its gates Saturday for Its meeting of nineteen days, and the opening was in keeping with the importance fcf Kentucky sport. The opening of Churchill Downs in the spring is always an important event in the racing year. It marks the beginning of a meeting of great importance, and it always means that the Kentucky Derby is almost at hand. Next Saturday the old classic is to be Staged and until post time for the running there will be as much, or possibly more interest in the progress of the various candidates as there is in the running off of the daily programs. But these daily programs have much of interest, and the bis Derby crowd, which invariably comes early, is beginning to gather for the classic of Saturday. Some years back the Kentucky Derby outgrew Churchill Downs and, in fact, it really outgrew Louisville. Col. Matt J. Wynn has endeavored to keep pace with the constantly growing appeal of the big race until the accommodations at the beautiful old racing gro;ind have been utilized just about to the last inch. It is building for one day of sport, for there can be no other racing that would make demands for the immense accommodations that have been made for the handling of a racing crowd, but year after year Colonel Wynn has ingeniously added something for the comfort and convenience of the patrons. And while this has all been going on the city of Louisville has built up its hotel properties, and much for the same reason. Now it is Derby week, instead of Derby day, and the race, more than any other factor, accounts for the construction of a number of the largest and most modern hotels in the city They all fill up during Derby week, and for years the appeal of the Kentucky Derby has been such, and many of the visitors have to find accommodation in one or other of the various Derby excursion trains. Indications this year point to a greater attendance than ever before and there continues a healthy growth in the popularity of the old race that had its first running away back in 1875. With the Pimlico racing of Saturday the spring season of sport in Maryland was brought to a conclusion. It was a tremendously successful one from the early April opening at the Bowie course right up to the running of the last race of Saturday. There were some weather handicaps, but the popularity of the sport was at all times attested by the attendance, and that monster crowd was out to see the running of the Preakness Friday told more than ever before of how utterly inadequate the Pimlico accommodations are for the staging of the 0,000 classic. Each of the other three big courses in Maryland have had to build new and more commodious stands to take care of the racing crowds. The Maryland Jockey Club has from time to time made important additions to its accommodations for the crowds, but with its limited property the limit seems almost to have been reached as far as present stands are concerned. And the growth of Baltimore would indicate that before long the Maryland Jockey Club will be forced to find a new tract of ground for the staging of its sport. No association is more liberal in the distribu- tion of prize money than the Maryland Jockey Club, and no racing association attracts a better lot of horses, or offers a better brand of racing, but unfortunately there is small chance for a further expansion in the matter of accommodation for the public. It is for this reason that a new racing ground appears to be almost imperative. And with the closing of the Maryland season it will mean a great improvement in the New York racing. Right through the Jamaica season the sport of the Metropolitan Jockey Club has suffered by reason of the Maryland conflict, and that was natural when comparison was made of the offerings at the two racing points. Jamaica indeed has an unfortunate position on the New York racing schedule. Four days without the Maryland opposition should help Jamaica a bit, and then will come the opening of the Westchester Racing Association term at beautiful Belmont Park. There, during the twenty-one days of sport, there will be many a prize of great importance decided and to many it is a meeting that really means the opening of the racing year in New York. It is natural there should be some disappointment over the decision of Walter J. Salmon and his trainer, the veteran Thomas J. Healey, to pass up the Kentucky Derby with Dr. Freeland. There are many of the admirers of the son of Light Brigade who consider him of a quality, among the three-year-olds of this season, to give him a royal good chance to duplicate the double scored for J. K. L. Ross by Sir Barton in 1919. There is no strain of the imagination that could make Dr. Freeland the equal of Sir Barton on anything he has accomplished, but it is easily possible that he might be better than the others in the Kentucky classic. One quality that counts with Dr. Freeland is his ability to stay. That was evident last year and Healey has brought him back this season with that desired excellence well developed. To wait for the Belmont Stakes may be the wiser plan, for it would seem that Dr. Freeland will be better suited to race the mile and a half of that great old fixture on June 8, than to race a mile and a quarter next Saturday against such as Blue Larkspur and Clyde Van Dusen, two that surely are possessed of more "foot," even though they might not be able to gallop as far as the Salmon colt. Dr. Freeland impresses as a tough colt and in that particular he is not unlike his older stablemate, Display, one of the best of American stayers and possibly the toughest horse in training. After all the high hopes for Mrs. John D. Hertz Reigh Count, his latest defeat in England was probably a more bitter disappointment than those that have gone before. The conditions for the running of the Great Jubilee, it was agreed, would be calculated to suit the son of Sunference and Contessina better than almost any that could be arranged, but his running was no more impressive than in his other defeats. No excuse could be offered for him except that he does not perform within pounds of the form that made him the American champion of last year. He has every physical appearance of having thrived excellently and trained excellenty for his engagements, but he has plainly shown that he is lacking in his American quality. He may develop the proposed plan for Mike Hall when he is sent abroad in the fall is a better one. That plan is to fit the horse on this side of the Atlantic and send him over only shortly before the engagements fall due, rather than send him over early in the hope that conditioning in England will better fit him for the conditions there.
