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t WHEELING DOWNS NOTES t $ — $ The half dozen horses R. V. Parrish vanned here this week from Kinsman, Ohio, belong to four owners. The shipment includes horses which will race in the silks of Iva Mae Hawkins of Akron; W. E. Webb of Charles Town, Mrs. A. Turner of Washington, D. C, and Richard LeBore, also of ; Akron. There are two boys exercising the dozen gallopers around the Island track these mornings. Jimmy Lynn is an apprentice, but Clifford Clouse, who is in the Parrish employ, has never paraded to the barrier. He may get his first chance during the coming meeting. Due to the fact that the first race bugle will not be sounded for another five weeks none of the early arrivals are getting more than a morning gallop, but the "walking" circuit, where horses are cooled out, has already been established in the Downs parking lot. The quality of the campaigners and a crew of landscapers will probably conspire to write an entire new set of records for Wheeling Downs during the coming spring meeting. Since the return of racing to Wheeling in 1937 under the banner of the West Virginia Jockey Club, runners have negotiated the five-furlong course consistently in 1:01 to 1:02 when the track apparently was free of the sticky going. Many speedy horses were seen here last fall, but rarely was the distance covered in a minute or less. There is every prospect of faster times during the sixteen-day session, which gets under way here May 27, because one of the obstacles in the path of great speed for this modern half-mile plant has been removed. When the rest of the racing course was laden with dust, the back stretch was always drying out. This spring the back stretch will get a chance to become fast, for the row of four dozen elm trees has had the benefit of the landscapers saw. The limbs had been so thick in recent meetings that the morning sun could not hit the turf until almost noon.
