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--------------------- Here and There on the Turf Bowie Officially Opens Season i Public Gives Its Approval Pimlico Oaks Renewal Popular Secretaries Must Be Ingenuous fc---. ................ . . A Bowie, as has been the custom so many years, inaugurated the major season with its opening yesterday. Judging by the turnout and general enthusiasm, the coming campaign will be successful, at least insofar as the racing associations are concerned. The course in southern Maryland has been spruced up for its meeting and with a stronger concentration of ready-to-race horses of better quality than has been noted there for years, the meeting should prove most attractive to the enthusiasts of Baltimore, Washington and other communities supporting Bowie. Some 400 horses were turned away from Bowie and in addition to those quartered there many are at Pimlico and other tracks which can be conveniently vanned in for engagements. So Bowie is not worrying about any absence of material, particularly as the Maryland-trained horses are well along in their preparation and anxious to clash with the steeds which saw service at the winter tracks. The Southern Maryland Association has never attempted to cater very much to the three-year-olds in the spring, but some of the horses which may be found in the fields for the Kentucky Derby and Preakness not only are located there now, but are likely to go postward. Havre de Grace offers the first important test for three-year-olds on the Maryland circuit in the Chesapeake Stakes, which has been elevated to a value of 5,000. Members of this division now at Bowie include Alvin Untermyers Chaps " and Torch Light, William Elders Walkaway, A. C. Comptons Sun Egret, Ral Parrs Legal Light, Bomar Stables Billmar and Benjam, J. J. Farrell, Jr.s, Brown Moth and Mills-dale Stables Sir Raleigh. Sun Egret and Legal Light did well in California, while the Untermyer three-year-olds wintered in South Carolina and are reported well advanced in training. Legal Light became ill while shipping with Sun Egret and will be 1 Continued on twenty-fourth page. : , s i ; I . 1 1 - I c . i I : . 1 ; l. 1 ! , ; : ; , : I I HERE AND THERE ON THE TURF Continued from second page. out for some time, while the others have breathed Maryland air all winter. Pleasing to the aggressive management of the Maryland Jockey Club must be the presence of sixty-one three-year-old fillies on the eligibility list of the Pimlico Oaks, which was revived last spring after a lapse of several years. A field of indifferent performers contested the revival, but something better may be expected when the mile and one-sixteenth event is again offered on May 7. Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, who is responsible for the many changes at Pimlico during the past year, used his experience as an owner and breeder to realize the need of a race like the Oaks, and not only has he put the race back on the program, but has seen to it that the Maryland Jockey Club tilted the added money to ,500. Consequently, a large field may be expected and embracing several which otherwise might have tried to get ready for the Kentucky Derby, which will be staged the same afternoon, but which should be content with a worthwhile race of their own. Heading the nominations for the Pimlico Oaks is Jacola, which ended the 1937 campaign generally conceded as the most capable juvenile filly. She had placed second to Nedayr in the Pimlico Futurity after having romped away with the Selima Stakes. Even if she starts out this year with the same ability she possessed at the end of last season the daughter of Jacopo may find the Pimlico Oaks a tough race to win. Among the other eligibles are Bunny Baby, which lost the recent Louisiana Derby to Wise Fox by a very slight margin; Roseretter, Nanse-mond, Creole Maid, Catalysis, Sketchbook, Autumnquest, Handcuff and Bransome, as well as others which have yet to achieve prominence. Fillies should have opportunities like the Pimlico Oaks in the spring and they should be better off for it in the fall, when the time has come to argue with the masculine division. Operation of the new weight rule, by which the imposts for an overnight event can be started no less than six pounds below scale, have caused racing secretaries to do a bit of thinking. Charles J. McLennan, in his Keeneland book just issued, wrote the conditions of one race as follows: "Purse ,200. For three-year-old colts and geldings. Weight, 120 pounds. Non-winners of 5,000 allowed two pounds; of 5,000, five pounds; 5,000, eight pounds; ,000, ten pounds; ,500, twelve pounds." The race undoubtedly was written for the capable three-year-olds expected at Keeneland, compelling Stagehand to be the top weight at 120 pounds and giving five pounds to Menow and Tiger, eight pounds to The Chief and Mountain Ridge and ten and twelve pounds to Bull Lea and the others. So, even if the apprentice allowance is claimed on the low weight, the weights can get no lower than 103 pounds, the absolute minimum provided in the new regulation. Even if the race had been open to fillies, its present conditions would not have fit, as the top weight would have set at least five pounds higher and thereby, perhaps, made the imposts higher than trainers cared to accept so early in the spring.
