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. HORSE COLONY READY Keeneland Prepared to Inaugurate Kentucky Season Next Thursday. Four Stakes and Seven Overnight Handicaps Listed for Decision j During Eleven-Day Session. LEXINGTON, Ky., April 7. Excepting those stables which will arrive from Churchill Downs over the week-end and several others coming from Hot Springs, tho thoroughbred colony that will take part in the-Keeneland meeting is complete. The local season, which will usher in Kentucky spring racing, will open Thursday, April 13, and continue for eleven days, Mondays excepted. During the two weeks four stakes and seven overnight handicaps will be offered and chief pf the features is the ,000 added Blue Grass Stakes, to be renewed on closing day, Thursday, April 27. This nine furlongs journey annually serves as an elimination test for the Kentucky Derby, and while in recent years it has not brought forth a winner that has been successful in the Louisville feature, it has earned itself a place as one of the leading races for three-year-olds. PHOENIX FIRST. Other stakes down for decision are the Phoenix Handicap, a dash over six furlongs and the feature for opening day. There will be no stakes on the first Saturday, but on the second Saturday the Ben Ali Handicap will be offered and the closing week will witness the running of the Lafayette Stakes, for two-year-olds, and the Ben Ali. On the first Saturday of the meeting, the John H. Morris Diamond Anniversary Handicap will be the feature, and this grand man of Kentucky racing will present the owner of the winner with a beautiful trophy. The book of conditions contains many races for three-year-olds, and the twenty-one eligibles to the Blue Grass Stakes will have ample opportunity before the local classic, as well as for the Kentucky Derby. The snow and rain of yesterday slowed up Continued on thirtieth page. HORSE COLONY READY Continued from first page. the track, but with less than a week intervening before the opening, there were many thoroughbreds to test the adverse going. Not since the track was built in 1937 has the training periods been as long as they are this year and hardly a day passes that 100 or more horses are not on the course. PRAISE TRACK. The top soil that was placed last spring has worked in thoroughly with the old loam and horsemen praise the one and one-sixteenth miles course as one of the safest and fastest in the country. It sheds water better than ever before and it takes a long and steady rain to thoroughly soak it. Val Sulich, Cecil Phillips and Carl Burns, three of starter Hamiltons assistants, who have been conducting schooling classes since Monday, state that the two-year-olds are very far advanced and that by the time of the opening they will be amply schooled to fill the two juveniles races that will be offered daily. Not one box changed ownership since the fall meeting and there is a long waiting list for these choice accommodations. President Headley says it would be possible to sell fifty more boxes if there was enough space to build them. The clubhouse is an invitational affair, being restricted to the members and their friends. The building of the four-lane highway caused a change in the entrance to the track and visitors this year will not see the congestion at the gates that prevailed in other years. The new entrance is just about completed and will be ready by Sunday, when it will be open-house day at the beautiful course.
