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MARYLAND RACING HOLDS OWN -r No Curtailment of Sport on Old Line State Tracks. Havre de Grace and Bowie Distribute More Than in Previous Year Pimlico Futurity Value Increases. Maryland, the cradle of mutuel play racing in the East, went through its customary magnificent program in the year 1931 with little apparent suffering from hard times, so far as the character of the sport itself was concerned. And, even on the face of cold financial facts, there was little to betray the existence of depression, serious as it was there as everywhere else. Two Maryland tracks, Havre de Grace and Bowie, actually distributed more money to the horsemen in 1931 than in 1930. The total distribution at Havre de Grace was 50,000 as against 39,200 the year previous, and at Bowie the difference was 0C,000 to 96,615. However, the two tracks that lead in Maryland racing with their splendid stakes fixtures, Pimlico and Laurel, fell a bit below 1930 and the slumps there resulted in a slight decrease for the Maryland circuit as a unit, though the difference between the distributions of the two years was only that between ,-594,290 and ,568,385, or the comparatively small sum of 5,905. So it must be said of the Maryland tracks that they upheld to a remarkable degree the standards of high-class racing that they have set in the past. This is true not only of the quality of the stakes but of the consistency and form of the sport as well. The average of winning favorites on all the tracks, meaning the inclusion of Marlboro, Timonium, Cumberland and Hagerstown, was 38 per cent. Pimlico had an average of .39 for its spring meeting and .40 for the fall meeting. Havre de Grace and Bowie fell rather low in this respect in their fall meetings, but the Havre de Grace spring meeting reached a high average of .45, which is a mark for any track to be proud of. Bowies spring meeting likewise was very formful. The Pimlico Futurity was worth more in 1931 than ever before, with one exception. C. V. Whitneys Top Flight, the years leading winner, took down 6,170, more than ,000 in excess of the value of Equipoises victory in 1930. The Futurity was worth more than this only in 1926, when 9,660 was the winners share. This was the only start Top Flight made during Maryland racing, and as A. C. Bost-wicks Mate, the three-year-old runner-up, was a very busy campaigner in the Old Line State the two-year-old champion had to take second seat to him in the row of winners. Mate, despite several failures toward the close of his arduous season, won 0,375 in Maryland. He began his series of triumphs, which were scored both in the East and West, by winning the Preakness Stakes. In the fall he won the Bowie and Thanksgiving Handicaps. Maryland fans saw the Garrison finishes for the season of two of the most improved stake horses, the three-year-old Clock Tower and the older Dr. Freeland, the latter a successful horse in Maryland; beginning with his Preakness victory in 1929. Clock Tower, the property of M L. Schwartz, won the Washington and Maryland Handicaps and through these and other successes hung up a total of 9,250. Dr. Freeland won the Southern Maryland and Baltimore Handicaps and is now well headed toward winter book favoritism, or at least second choice to Phar Lap for the winters richest stake, the Agua Caliente Handicap. Burning Blaze, potential Derby star of 1932, accounted for two Maryland stakes, the Richard Johnson and Eastern Shore, and won 0,875. Plucky Play and Valenciennes, westerners, took down appreciable sums. Tlie Northway Stables Plucky Play won the Riggs Memorial Handicap. His money winnings amounted to 3,250. Mrs. John Hertz Valenciennes did even better than that by winning the Havre de Grace Cup Handicap and finishing third in both the Southern Maryland and Thanksgiving Handicaps. Paul Bunyan was one of the surprises of Maryland racing when he won the Dixie Handicap, one of the early features. The Selima Stakes was won by Laughing Queen and the Potomac Handicap by Tambour.
