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Centennial Track Ushers In Annual 50-Day Meet Eleven-Horse Field Entered In Littleton Speed Handicap By W. A. CRUSE Staff Correspondent-o CENTENNIAL RACE TRACK, Littleton, Colo., June 26. — Tomorrow marks the curtain raiser for Centennial Race Tracks 50-day meeting which promises to be the biggest turf season in the four year history of the Littleton oval. Major event of the day Will be the ,000. five-furlong Littleton Speed Handicap which includes two former Santa Anita winners in its eleven-horse line-up. The Quarter Horse Special, third race on the card, will include Quinella wagering at Centennial. The stage is set. Weather outlook for Saturday promises a cool opening day with post time for the first event on the ten-race program, set for 1:30 p:m. T. M. Holts Swanees Penny is scheduled to carry topweight of 120 pounds in the feature. The five-year-old filly recorded "three victories in nine starts at Santa Anita this winter. Vieing for top money will be Haughty Miss, another W. C. Martin-owned filly. Carrying second highweight, 117 pounds, is M.. H. "Bud" Robineaus Mt. Haro. The highly rated three-time winner at Santa Anita comes to Centennial after Ak-Sar-Ben. The Eddie. Presnell-trained gelding carried such jockeys as Eric Guerin and Eddie Arcaro at the California track. Favored by local fans, Mrs. Max Petersons Winada, will carry jockey Sam Miller, 112 pounds. Winada won two five-furlong features at Brush Memorial Park last month by margins of five and six lengths and a third straight of six and a half furlongs. Thoroughbreds from Arizona Downs, slated for Saturdays dash, include rildoit 113, Arizona Downs track record-holder for the short distance; J. F. Smoots Offset, 110, six-year-old Black Piute, 108, trained by H. Mackelprang, Jr.; Charlsa, lightly weighted at 102 pounds, and Three Pigs, 106, a thoroughbred with three Arizona Downs quarter horse dash victories this winter. Also included in the field opening day will be Lyo Lees Brookhaven 109, who ran third in an allowance event at Hawthorne on Memorial Day. Lee will also pin his hopes on Blaze Face, a Tanforan cam-paiger with Charles lies in the saddle at 109 pounds. lies was Centennials leading jockey last year. Carrying lightest weight will be the four-year-old filly Charlsa, 102 pounds. Trained by G. N. Hageman, the filly won her first race of the year at Arizona Downs in a ,000 claiming race. Through the first six months of the year, thoroughbred racing over the country has showed a handle increase of several percentage points. Memorial Park at Brush, the only horse racing in Colorado thus far this year, went along with the trend and 1 lifted its wager figure 18 per cent over 1952s count. Centennial hopes to follow the trend and all indications the day before the season curtain-raiser would seem to give the Littleton oval a better year than ever before. More season tickets have been sold than in the previous four years and interest in racing generally seems to be up. The latter is proved by the large numbers of Denverites taking public transportation buses to the Brush track this sr/ing-j For the 4.0-dayM 950 "season, Centennial had a daily average of 86,609, with crowds averaging 5,316. The next season showed a slight increase at the windows, a 1 per cent lift to 89,312, with the fans averaging 4,347 per day. The best year was 1952 and average daily crowds of 5,132 poured 19,768 through the windows each day — an increase of 16 per cent. The big question mark is, of course, the future and the 1953 season, but if current interest continues, it will be the banner year of the tracks history.
