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WOOD MEMORIAL SATURDAY Jamaica Race Usually Determines Eastern Starters in Derby. New Yorks Rich 0,000 Prize Also Guide to This Years Preakness Stakes Possibilities. NEW "YORK, N. Y., April 25.-The eyes of the racing world will be focused on Jamaica on Saturday, April 29, because on that afternoon two important stakes are down for decision, the Wood Memorial, for three-year-olds, one mile and seventy yards, 0,000 added, and the Jamaica, a handicap for three-year-olds and upward, ,000 added, six furlongs. The Wood, one of the most important three-year-old stakes run in this country prior to the Kentucky Derby, usually acts as a reliable guide for the Kentucky feature, run a week later. This year, however, it serves the two-fold purpose of affording a reliable guide for the Preakness, run two weeks later, as several of the entrants ineligible for the Kentucky are reckoned stout contenders for -the Maryland feature. Forty are eligible for the Wood Memorial and, with ten starters, the race will gross 5,500 and net the winner 8,175. Indications at this writing are the field will come from among Johnstown, El Chico, Volitant, Eight Thirty, Gilded Knight among eastern three-year-old stars, as well as T. M. Dorsett, Lovely Night, Book Plate, Equilibrium, Sun Lover, Devils Peak, Sea Captain, Counterpoise and Heather Broom, with Pontius, Johns Heir and Time Sheet possibilities. NAMED FOR EUGENE WOOD. Named in honor of the late Eugene Wood, for years the dominating figure in the Metropolitan-Jockey Club, the Wood Memorial was first run in 1925 and won by the late Harry Payne Whitneys Backbone, 110 pounds, with Voltaic second and Swope third, and it netted the winner S7.600. W. R. Coes Pompey, 120 pounds, trained by Bill Karrick, won the first renewal and ,700 and, on the strength of this victory, started as one of the choices in the Kentucky Derby, won by Bubbling Over. The Greentree Stables Saxon, 117 pounds, won the 1927 race, beating Black Panther and Bostonian, the latter going on to win the Preakness. That year the winner garnered ,050. "Sunny Jim" Fitzsimmons saddled his first of five winners of this stake in 1928 when the silks of the Wheatley Stable were carried to the fore by Distraction, with Genie second. The winners portion of the stake was 1,300. Doctor Wilson, winner of the Tijuana Derby, finished a well beaten third. A somewhat ordinary field went postward for the Wood of 1929, the winner turning up in the Jacques Stables Essare, with Annapolis second and Upset Lad, winner of the Florida Derby, third. GALLANT FOXS YEAR. A high class field went postward in 1930 and the Belair Studs Gallant Fox, ridden by Earl Sande, and trained by Jim Fitzsimmons, began a series of triumphs that included the Preakness, the Derby, the Belmont, the Classic, the Saratoga Cup, the Lawrence Realization and the Jockey Club Gold Cup. A year later the Greentree Stables Twenty Grand, trained by young Jimmie Rowe, emulated the performance of Gallant Fox to the w extent of winning the Wood Memorial, the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont, the Travers, the Saratoga Cup, the Lawrence Realization and the Jockey Club Gold Cup. The Wood Memorial of 1932 was the medium of a terrific upset, the unbeaten Top Flight went to the post an odds-on choice and failed to finish among the first three, the order of the finish being Universe, Economic and Curacao.
