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RACING SEASON IN CANADA Spring Meeting at Woodbine Park to Inaugurate Sport in Dominion. English King and Queen to See the 80th Running of Kings Plate, to Be Run Monday. TORONTO, Ont, May 19 —Woodbine Park, palatial home of the Ontario Jockey Club, opens its seven-day spring meeting, to inaugurate the Canadian season for 1939, today. Influenced by the magic of Mondays visit of the King and Queen, rulers of the British Empire, and the eightieth running of the Kings Plate, the Dominions premier race, national interest swings to the grand old course, which has few, if any, peers on the continent. Seldom, if ever, has the spring session, now at hand, created such widespread interest and has been awaited with keen optimism on every side. As the Woodbine goes, so goes the Canadian season has been an old established fact of this section. With the royal visit and the running of the Kings Plate beckoning, a record crowd is assured. Woodbine Park has every right to look forward to a banner season. Other factors pointing to a bumper meeting are conditions generally, a marked improvement in the classes of horses assembled for the meet, increased outlay in stakes and purses, and the popularity of racing. Bedecked in spring-time foliage and completely decorated in royal splendor, the magnificent plant will present a picturesque setting and is more beautiful than ever. ADEQUATE PREPARATIONS. Adequate preparations have been made to accommodate the Monday crowd, which promises to surpass attendance records in the long history of the course. Temporary rest rooms and mutuel pavilions have been erected in the infield for the comfort of the patrons. A new fence has been built six feet inside the inner rail to keep the crowds from the rail, when the infield will be thrown open for Mondays program. Clear skies and bright .sunshine prevail and everything points to a banner opening. The initial running of the Queens Cup Handicap, which carries the value of ,000 added, will be the opening feature, at a mile and seventy yards. Seven of the most prominent horses in the Dominion are scheduled to contest the issue, and racing secretary P. C. Gallagher has a splendid card arranged. The sixty-first running of the Frazer Memorial, which had the value of ,500 this year and which was a companion feature of the Queens Cup, was canceled when insufficient entries were available. The Hamilton Plate Handicap, for home-breds, however, has attracted the best of the homesters and great interest will be created by the re-matching of the majority of the 1938 field.
