view raw text
Grand Circuit Meeting Under Way at Fairmount Five Horses Each With 2:00 Mile Marks Stabled at Track FAIRMOUNT PARK, Collinsville, 111., May 18. — Fairmount Park Raceway, the only mile track in the country lighted for harness racing, is playing host to the Grand Circuit for the first four weeks of its two-month meeting which got under way here tonight. During the Grand Circuits stay here through June 18, approximately 00,-000 will be distributed in purses. After its run at Fairmount, the Grand Circuit will move east to the Roosevelt Raceway in New York. Stabled at Fairmount are five harness performers who have entered the select circle of two-minute milers. These are the pacers Friscoway and Alemite, owned by Octave Blakes Newport Stock Farm, South Plainfield, N. J., and Brother Harmony, in Foy Funderburks stable, and the trotters, Rodney, voted "Harness Horse of the Year" in 1948, and Full Bloom, who races under the banner of A. L. Derby, of Wichita, Kans. Rodney, the giant R. H. Johnston stallion, beat the mark four times in 1948 and set four new worlds records. Friscoway and Alemite, both driven by young Del Cameron, raced to their records on the same day last season at Lexington, Ky. In the first month of racing, the three top stakes at the Collinsville track will be the 0,000 Trotting Derby, June 10; the ,000 Matron Stake on June 3, and the companion Matron Stake on June 4 for ,000. The derby is for aged trotters — four years and up — but the Matron Stakes is for three-year-old trotters and pacers. Each of the latter two races has drawn an excellent field of horses eligible to the 7,000 Ham-bletonian and the 5,000 Little Brown Jug, both to be raced in the East later 4n the year. In 46 nights of racing last spring, Fair-mount Park handled a total of ,978,25« for a nightly average of 6,484.
