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Constitution Handicap Next Stake at Suffolk Seventeen. Nominations Assure Large Starting Field Saturday SUFFOLK DOWNS, East Boston, Mass., May 17. — Suffolk Downs reaches the halfway mark of its 60-day-meeting next Saturday and the featured attraction will be the ,000 Constitution Handicap. The abundance of three-year-olds on the grounds should assure racing secretary E. O. "Eb" Pons one of his largest fields of the current meeting. The race holds great significance for local trainers hoping to have candidates for the richer Yankee Handicap to be rim on June .17. There have been 17 nominations received for the mile and a sixteenth test and weights are due to be released late Monday afternoon. When the race was conceived back in 1935, juveniles met in the late fall at six furlongs, with Infidox defeating Clocks and Marta. After a years absence from the stake agenda the race was revived for three-year-olds at a mile and held an important position on the local roster. That procedure continued through 1947 with such sophomores as Clingendaal, Thanksgiving, Lovely Night, Blue Pair and Valdina Orphan taking top honors. The nomination list began to lose the big-name sophomores in the late forties, so the management decided to extendHhe distance to a mile and a sixteenth with the idea in mind that local stables would use the feature as a proving ground for their thoroughbreds with the richer Yankee Handicap in mind. The Yankee has always attracted invaders from other eastern tracks and the Constitution was kept as practically a local test to determine the better three-year-olds to meet the cream of £he eastern sophomores. This years edition-should prove very in-; teresting with such eligibles as Eddie Siravos Royal Marvel", E. P. Rodriguez Academy Award, J. L. Friedmans Oreo, Henry Florys Handiwork, Jay-Bob Stables Im Sandy, R. S. Parkers Occupatic and Mrs. J. M. Branhams Shadows Imp included in the potential lineup. Others eligible are Nola Hash, Bon Victoire, Poop-cha, Brother Ghost, Desirable, Ruddy Belle, Shell Diver, Palaje, Isograde and LAvion. Should Royal Marvel and Academy Award compete in. the event it will go a long way to decide the choice among the local sophomores pointing for the Yankee. Each has been postward three times and have identical records of being unbeaten at this course.
