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WASHINGTON PARKS BID . FOR . THE BEST a HORSES -j American Derby Heads List of Seven Imposing Stakes Valuable Feature Races and Daily Purse Minimum of ,000 Expected to Attract Goodly Share of Outstanding Racers . WASHINGTON PARK STAKE SCHEDULE I May 25 CHICAGO HANDICAP, six furlongs, three-year-olds and upward; ,000 added. I May 30 THE BLUE AND THE GRAY MEMORIAL, one and one-eighth miles, three-year-olds and upward; ,000 added. I June 1 PRAIRIE STATE STAKES, five and one-half furlongs, two-year-olds; ,000 added. June 8 GREAT WESTERN HANDICAP, one and one-eighth miles, three-j year-olds and upward; ,000 added. j June 15 WASHINGTON PARK JUVENDLE STAKES, five and one-half fur-j longs, two-year-olds; ,000 added. I June 22 AMERICAN DERBY, one and one-quarter miles, three-year-olds; 5,000 added. June 29 WASHINGTON PARK CHAMPIONSHIP HANDICAP, one and one-! quarter miles, three-year-olds and upward; ,000 added. I The 5,000 American Derby, at a mile and a quarter, Chicagos favorite horse race since 1884, will head an imposing list of seven stakes when Washington Park opens here on May 25 for the first thirty-one day meeting under its new local management. President John P. Harding yesterday announced the complete Washington Park stake program, and added: "With seven stakes of ,000 minimum value, and a guaranteed daily purse minimum of ,000. Washington Park seems to me certain to attract the best i thoroughbreds in training to Chicago this season. Washington Park should open the best season Chicago racegoers have seen in recent years." The American Derby will be the only three-year-old special offered at Washington Park. There will be two ,000 stakes for the two-year-olds The Prairie State Stakes and -the Washington Park Juvenile Stakes, both at five and one-half furlongs. The sprinting members of the handicap division will get one crack at a ,000 purse in the Chicago Handicap, at six furlongs, which opens the meeting. Handicap horses that can go on over a distance of ground have two ,000 fixtures, at a mile and a furlong, in The Blue and The Gray Memorial, and the Great Western Handicap. The meeting closes on June 29 with the Washington Park Championship Handicap, a ,000 added affair, at a mile and a quarter. This race is designed not only to attract such members of the handicap division as have proven themselves in the earlier handicaps, but is being staged after the American Derby, in order to give the three-year-olds a chance to race against old- fContinued on twenty-third page. WASHINGTON PARKS BID FOR THE BEST HORSES Continued from first page. er horses. Few of the three-year-olds of championship pretensions will have had such an opportunity before June 29, for the schedule of three-year-old specials which leads up to the American Derby offers horses an opportunity for action almost every Saturday. Stake blanks are being mailed out to all prominent stables over the week-end, and with the variety afforded by the stake schedule it is expected that nominations will begin to pour into the "Washington Park offices at once. All of the Washington Park stakes close on May 1. The new stake schedule hase been adapted to meet modern racing conditions, in which the older horse is becoming much more important than lie was a few years ago. Such former Washington Park fixtures as the Lassie Stakes, for two-year-old fillies, and the Illinois Oaks, for three-year-old fillies, have been abandoned as outmoded. In seeking suitable stakes for a modern program, the new Washington Park management gave a great deal of study to the schedules at old Washington Park-, with the idea of reviving such of its historic fixtures as could be adapted. The American Derby, of course, was the most famous of these old races, and it was continued. Another that is not so well known to the present generation of race goers is the Great Western Handicap, "which goes back to 1884, right along with the American Derby. Its former distance was a mile and a half, and it has fallen to some great horses such as Yo Tambien, Goodrich, Jolly Roger and Sabine. With its distance cut to a mile and a furlong, it takes up its history again this season as one of the most interesting of Homewoods fixtures. The coming meeting will see its seventeenth running; John Mc--1 Gurk won its last renewal in 1903.
