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LATONIA RACING « Twenty-Nine Days Meeting to Be Ushered In Under Favorable Auspices — Splendid Inaugural Program LATONIA, Ky., June 3. — Latonia, which has known the tread of thoroughbred equine kings and queens for almost a half a century and for that long stretch of time a course to conjure with as one of the outstanding racing centers of the western hemisphere, opens for its forty-seventh spring and summer meeting on Tuesday. This newest of meetings, which will extend over a period of twenty-nine days, concluding on Saturday, July 6, holds every prospect of comparing with the most successful ever held at the famed old racing place. The eve of the meeting finds the keenest of interest on every side. Track attaches are sanguine in judging public expectancy the equal, if not exceeding, that of other years. They have for weeks been extremely busy dircting the installation of improvements and complete renovation of the spacious plant and the a expensive program carried out along those lines, has brought a newer and finer beauty and completeness to the plant. In enhancing the long view beauty of the track, officials were required to expend a considerable sum, which contributed to further landscaping, painting of the grandstand, club house and other track buildings, more attractive fencing and numerous other betterments of no little importance. The completion of this extensive work seems to exhaust all means for increasing the beauty, equipment and comforts of the popular plant. Although the meeting will conflict with such important ones as those at Fairmount Park and Washington Park, it bids well to offer racing in keeping with the finest of other years. It is next to impossible to lure a great number of the most formidable western stables from Latonia, with the result that there is gathered for the meeting a colony of thoroughbreds well capable of providing sport worthy of the great patronage of which the meeting is assured. Polk Laffoon, president ; Maurice Galvin, vice-president ; Russell Sweeney, resident manager, and other of the Latonia Jockey Club official family are agreed in the opinion that the outlook for a successful meeting is extremely bright. There has come to the j I track offices a greater number of requests for season reservations than ever before and requests for accommodations on the days bringing renewals of the more important racing fixtures, foreshadow an interest warranting the belief that Latonia racing commands a greater popularity with each new year. In all nine stakes will be renewed during the meeting, the most widely known being that of the Latonia Derby, for three-year-olds, at one mile and a half, which comes up for its forty-seventh running on Saturday, June 22. The Derby carries 5,000 added and with all of the outstanding three-year-olds eligible, it holds the prospect of enjoying its most notable running. Among the 134 eligibles are Clyde Van Dusen, winner of the Kentucky Derby ; Karl Eitel, winner of the Fair-mount Derby ; Blue Larkspur, winner of the Continued on twenty-second page. RACING AT LATONIA TODAY Continued from first page. Withers Stakes, and many other formidable three-year-olds. Other rich features for the meeting are the renewals of the 0,000 added Latonia Oaks and the Independence Handicap, which carries a like amount in added money. Five thousand dollars is added to each of the six additional stakes, the first of which will be offered Tuesday in the annual running of the Inaugural Handicap, feature of the opening day program. Although the racing strip, deep in mud today, probably will be in a heavy condition for the running of the initial program, eight stars of the western handicap division were named for the inaugural headliner. They will try conclusions over one mile and a sixteenth, and are headed by Jock, the star of the E. B. McLean establishment, which will essay to carry top weight of 126 pounds. The Audley Farms Easter Stockings, L. P. Combs Broadside, J. N. Camdens Martinique, Lechleiter and Flanigans Golden Racket, H. P. Headleys Paraphrase, J. S. Wards Dun-more and Kenton Farms Typhoon complete the field. Due to track conditions, small fields are entered for each of the six races surrounding the stake contest, but the contestants are well matched, and despite the bad condition of the racing ground, much good sport should result. The field for the opening race will be called to the starting point at 2 oclock and but for a few exceptions the racing will be under the direction of the same officials who served here last year. An absentee from the stewards stand after the opening day will be Charles F. Price, who is to return to Washington Park, and this work will be in the hands of T. C. Bradley, S. C. Nuckols and Elijah Hogge. William Shelley will serve as racing secretary, handicapper and placing judge. In the latter work he will be assisted by Sherman Goodpaster and Samuel H. McMeekin, both newcomers to the Latonia organization. Mr. McMeekin also will act as clerk of scales. The starting will be under the direction of William Hamilton.
