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. j- Chicagos Greatest Season in Prospect Run of 163 Days Gets Under! j I Way Saturday Afternoon at Sportsmans Park Course With the opening here next Saturday, of j the National Jockey Clubs spring meeting, | racing will return to one of its principal i centers and what is expected to prove Chicagos greatest season of the sport, will be under way. The introductory meeting, embracing but 14 days, closing on Monday, May 15. will be following by the major sessions to be conducted by the Lincoln Fields Jockey Club. Arlington Park Jockey Club, Washington Park Jockey Club, and the Chicago Business Mens Racing Association. Following the meetings at the larger plants, the thoroughbreds will return to Sportsmans Park where their racing in late October and early November will bring the 1944 season to a close. As was the case last year when transportation restrictions forced the Lincoln Fields Jockey Club to transfer its meeting to Hawthorne and the Arlington Park Jockey Club to shift its racing to Washington Park, only two of the four major plants are scheduled to operate. Besides the early Lincoln Fields racing, Hawthorne will be the scene of the autumn sport to be staged by the Chicago Businessmens Racing Association while the combined Arlington Park and Washington Park meetings will keep the thoroughbreds at the latter track from mid-June to early September. Racing there will close with a number of war relief programs to be staged by the five racing associations as a part of the industrys 1944 assistance to war relief organizations and other charities. ,500 Handicap Featured The Sportsmans Park meeting will open with a program of eight races, chief of which will be the ,500 added Inaugural Handicap. This race is given over to horses three years or older and the contestants will compare speed for a distance of seven furlongs. A purse race for three-year-olds and to be run at the same distance, is the more promising of events supporting the feature. John L. Keeshin. president of the National Jockey Club, believes that throughout the short period his track will operate, the programs will compare with the finest ever presented at the Cicero track. He and his associates confidently expect the success of their brief season to compare with that being enjoyed by racing elsewhere over the country.
