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JUDGES STAND I By Charles Hatton Tracks Put on Good Show Memorial Day Armed Faces Best Fields So Far This Year Aqueducts Improvements Behind Schedule Lincoln Bids for Name Horses at Chicago NEW YORK, N. Y., May 27. Memorial Day always has been marked by large crowds, and this one will not be an exception, if strikes do not interfere. The richest of the stakes to be run Thursday is the 0,000 Suburban Handicap here at Belmont Park. This is the traditional feature of the holiday at the huge Nassau County course. Out at Hollywood Park there is the 5,000 Argonaut Handicap, which is a run of a mile and a sixteenth for three-year-olds and upward. Chicago fans will see Lincoln-at-Hawthornes most valuable stake, the 5,000 Francis S. Peabody Memorial, for three-year-olds. The days feature down at Delaware Park, which opens on Wednesday, is the ,500 added Polly Drum-mond. at five furlongs, for two-year-old fillies. It is one of the Easts more important spring tests for this age and sex. Up at Suffolk Downs the new owners offer a renewal of their 0,000 Tomasello Handicap, which is at a mile and a sixteenth, for three-year-olds and upward. Not so many track heads nowadays take the cheap view that the holiday crowds will go racing anyway so that there is no occasion for putting on any special attraction. Of course, the larger volume of business and the tax method are factors, but we like to think most of them would try to "put on a good show" ti any case. The Suburban is easily the most "significant" of the Memorial Day events. There is an exciting possibility that in this mile and a quarter contest Armed will meet the most formidable field of rivals he has yet encountered this season. The probable starters also include First Fiddle, Stymie, Fighting Step, Sirde and Snow Boots. Every one is a "name" horse. Jimmy Jones brought the Calumet gelding here in excellent condition for this test. So far as "name" horses are concerned, the Argonaut field at Hollywood will not be at all anonymous. Around Chicagos Loop they regard Spy Song as "the one to catch" in the Peabody. He is a fast if whimsical colt. It is said, by the way, that the former rider Walter Lilley can induce him to do more in the morning than almost any jockey has been able to do in the afternoon. An assortment of the better two-year-old fillies will make up the field in the Polly Drummond. This is the stake in which Beaugay last summer set a track record after her van went into a ditch en route from Long Island to Wilmington and she stood on the road in a broiling sun for an hour or so. A great many of the public and most of the horsemen seem to hope that Aqueducts 18-day meeting, opening next Monday, will be moved to Belmont Park. As this is written it appears very probable. The improvement program deals with seating and sewers. The racing surface has been the subject of a good deal of criticism in late years and the club has changed the radius of the home turn and resoiled the track, eliminating these objectional features. Aqueduct is offering nine flat stakes that total 80,000 at the meeting, which ends June 22. Considerably the most important of these events are the 0,000 Brooklyn, on getaway day, and the 0,000 Dwyer, on June 15. Assault, who is the natural choice in this week-ends 00,000 Belmont Stakes, is in the Dwyer. It differs from the "Triple Crown" races in that it is under allowance conditions. For instance, Assault would have to spot five pounds to any rival who has not won a three-year-old stake of 5,000, and 10 to those who have never won 0,000. These are discreet conditions. By mid-June it usually is pretty clear who is the best three-year-old, and at level weights the field might be quite small. Chicagoans will see more high-grade horses in action during the remaining days of the Lincoln clubs meeting at Hawthorne. A number of those intended for racing at Arlington and Washington are expected to put in an appearance, and the bulk of Lincolns prize money is offered between now and its June 15 closing. There is another reason for this, as there is less risk of wet weather during this period. Arlington Park is the Middle Wests proudest boast, and there is much interest in the session which opens there June 17, particularly among the north siders, who rarely visit other Chicago tracks. The nucleus of the powerful Calumet and Maine Chance strings already are there, and divisions of the stables of L. B. Mayer, William Helis, C. V. Whitney and others are expected. The first four stakes — the Clang, Hyde Park, Princess Doreen and Equipoise Mile — close June 8. It has not been easy for Midlands tracks to build up their sport. It could be torn down by the proposed increase in take. Turfiana: W. L. Brann was out to see his Gallorette win a Top Flight qualifier last week. She has been a good tonic for jthe Hoosier. . . . Doc Jones has a half-thoroughbred mule for a lead pony. . . . Hardly anyone now mentions Warren Wrights Pep Well when discussing the top three-year-olds, but he is improving at a rate which suggests he may be a factor later on. . . . Preston Burch recently bought the Bull Lea mare Some Surprise at Hipodromo de las Americas and shipped her to Cy White to be bred. . . . Burg-el-Arab goes to stud next spring. . . . That new gate at the Long Island trots is a 0,000 job. . . . Horses could be walked from Jamaica to Belmont, but we cant imagine grooms doing it. . . . The TRPBs Ed Coffey is in Chicago to establish an office there. ... An old-time Negro groom who had never been in a receiving barn before was afraid to enter Belmonts. "Looks like Sing Sing," he quavered.
