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ARLINGTON STEEPLECHASING Attracting Best Jumpers in Country and Outstanding Gentlemen and Professional Riders. Herman Conkling, who will represent the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association in the stewards stand at Arlington Park in the course of the thirty days of racing that will begin June 29, has come on from Baltimore to look things over. Arlington chasing this year, he predicts, will be as good as the best ever offered anywhere. "Last year," he said to Otto W. Lehmann, president of the Arlington Park Jockey Club, as they talked things over at the north side course, "the supporters of steeplechas-ing in the East were not sure chasing would take out here. The West hadnt had any of any sort for about a quarter of a century, none ever as the chasing understood in Maryland, New England and Canada and about New York. "That it became instantly popular surprised; the fact that it did registered strong. From this season on Arlington Park will be regarded, as far as steeplechasing goes, much as are Saratoga, Belmont Park and Woodbine Park. It is generally recognized that the new Arlington course, which was constructed under the direction of Herman Pels, superintendent of Belmont Park, is a3 fine a course as the country knows. The appeal of Arlington to the consideration of steeplechase trainers is strong because of the schooling field that has been improved since last summer. This schooling course, one mile around, is good enough for regular steeplechasing. "Votaries of chasing out here are going to see two amazingly good riders in Pete Bostwick and Rigan McKinney, millionaire amateurs. They did not come out last season. Young Bostwick will be here this year to ride a horse or so of his own, also his brothers and his aunts. Mrs. Ambrose Clark is his aunt. She will be as strongly represented in Arlington chasing as any other Eastern sportswoman or sportsman. Bostwicks best is Road Agent, a son of Vul-cain and Masque, which won at Belmont Park, May 19, beating Icicle, Cree, Valorous, Luckite, Erne II., Tasman and Dancing Princess. Bostwick, of course, rode. Road Agent won three times out of four last year. "There is no more promising green jumper in America than McKinneys Inception. He won a Bowie Handicap with Inception at Pimlico last fall and Sun Beau was one of the horses the Sporting Blood colt beat. It was for steeplechasing, however, that McKinney paid 5,000 for Inception. "I dont wish to disparage our professional jockeys, but in these amateurs steeplechasing today boasts, in my estimation, the most skillful horsemen extant. They have everything. No great amateurs of the past — and we have had many good ones — had anything on either of them. One reason they are so good is that their hearts are in the game. They would rather fool around horses than do anything else in the world. If misfortune of a pecuiniary kind should ever overtake them they would easily command 5,000 or 0,000 a year as trainers." McKinneys Inception is a prospective starter in the North Shore and Lake Forest steeplechases, gallops of two miles and two miles and a half, for four-year-olds and over, that should gross about ,000 each. Albert Bostwicks North Shore and Lake Forest hopes are the outlander, Zinita, and the American-bred Oesel. Albert Bostwick, a finished rider himself, is a steward of the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association.
