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CANADIAN RACING SEASON ♦ Inauguration Begins at Woodbine Park in Toronto. ♦ Old Established Kings Plate, With Field of Nineteen, Feature of Ontario Jockey Clubs Seven-Day Meeting. ♦ TORONTO, Ont., May 17.— The Canadian racing season for 1929 will be ushered in at the Woodbine course Saturday afternoon when the seven-day meeting of the Ontario Jockey Club will begin. At Montreal tne season will be inaugurated at Kings Park while another seven-day meeting will see the western sport get under way at Chinook Park, Calgary, Alberta. Racing at the Woodbine ranks with the best on this continent and the liberal policy pursued by the directors of the club has resulted in world-wide interest in the running of some of its fixtures, notably the Kings Plate. This important Canadian classic, which is always featured on the opening day of the Ontario Jockey Clubs meetings in the spring, has brought together a field of nineteen. The Seagram Stable, the Hastings Stable and J. C. Fletcher have named three each to carry their colors. The Kings Plate, which calls for a journey of one mile and an eighth, is rather a severe test so early in the year and the backward spring has forced the trainers of some to force their charges in order to get them fit for this struggle. The Seagram Stables Circulet is said to be the reliance of the Waterloo sportsmen to land the prize. Jockey J. Maiben has been engaged to ride him. which means that he will be in clever hands. P. Goodwin will ride Dance Circle, while P. McGinnis will have the mount on Irish Sphere. R, Leonard and L. Schaefer, who came up from New York, will ride two of the Hastings Stables pair. Son of Harmony and Cuddle Doon. The Kings Plate will be run as the fourth race and will be worth something like 0,765, apart from the 50 guineas, the gift of his majesty, King George V. The plate, as everyone knows, is the oldest fixture run continuously on the American continent. Formerly known as the Queens Plate it was first run in I860, when James Whites Don Juan won at Carleton. The Seagram Stable has won this stake no less than eighteen times and, at one period, eight times in succession. The program is a splendid one. It teems with features. Apart from the plate, there is the ,000 added Aintree Steeplechase, in which fourteen jumpers are entered. This stake calls for a journey over the two-mile course In the Trial Plate Handicap, which is run as the opening race, fifteen of the seventeen named, are entered overnight. The Hi athen is top weight in this race. A smashing good I field of two-year-olds is named in the Cavendish Plate which will be run as the fifth race. Among them are Wrackell. winner of the Sporting Plate at Bowman Park this spring; Wacket. a winner at Havre de Grace ; Vacillate, winner of three straight races in Maryland ; Tewsenelda and the Salmon-Wilson pair. Companion and Cherry Laurel. With weather indications for bright skies and warm sunshine and a track that will be fast, a great days sport is in store for Ontario Jockey Club patrons and a gathering that should tax the capacity of the plant will turn out to witness the racing.
