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OLDER SPRINTERS GET CHANCE Fair Grounds Condition Books Changed to Include Sprints. 0,000 Added Louisiana Derby to Be Closed on March 19 Supplementary Entry Fee 00. NEW ORLEANS, La., Jan. 19. During the past two years owners of platers, four-year olds and over, adapted for sprinting, were forced to race them a mile or more or put them aside entirely while the local Fair Grounds operated, but the coming meeting, opening at that Louisiana Jockey Club course Monday, January 25, will find them with more opportunities. Col. E. R. Bradley, owner of the Fair Grounds and a vigorous advocate of distance racing for the improvement of the thoroughbred, has relented and is becoming less harsh, allowing racing secretary Joseph McLennan to program races over three-quarters for horses of the ,500 claiming scale. Sprinters not capable enough to have a chance in races of the ,500 selling variety will have little value while the meeting is on, as Colonel Bradley has set the minimum claiming price for all selling races at three-quarters for four-year-olds and over at the mentioned figure. Racing secretary McLennan can "run the claiming price as far above ,500 as he likes, but not below. While this will reduce the number of distance races so popular with Fair Grounds patrons, there will be no flood of opportunities for the older plater sprinters. The change should strike a popular cord through the stables, as dozens of them have one or more horses of a type for such events. Secretary McLennan opened his offices in the administration building at the Fair Grounds Monday morning, when the work of registering all of the hundreds of horses, acceptance of license applications, issuance of badges and dozens of other details got under way. He is being assisted by his son Charles, and upon the arrival of stewards, Christopher Fitzgerald and Martin Nathanson, later, hopes to have all license applications in readiness for governing officials. Continued on second page. OLDER SPRINTERS GET CHANCE Continued from first page. McLennan is closing the 0,000 added Louisiana Derby on March 19. It will be offered for the first time at the Fair Grounds on the concluding day of the meeting, January 30. The cost is 5 per entry, but this iniportant feature will be open for supplementary nominations until March 5. Entries made after January 30 and before March 5, will entail a subscription of 00 each. As in former years when the Louisiana Derby was run at Jefferson Park, it will be conducted as a race exclusively for three-year-olds, over one mile and one-eighth. Copies of the first condition book were available to horsemen last week, the change to provide a few chances for the older plater sprinters occasioning delay in delivery of the booklets by the printer. Throughout the meeting all races for two-year-olds will be run over three-eighths, secretary McLennan said today.
