view raw text
I r Connors Corner By "CHUCK" CONNORS Plan Rockingham Invitational Race Will Be Carded on Bunker Hill Day Afforded Owners Shot at 0,000 BELMONT PARK, Elmont, L. I., N. Y.f June 7. Lou Smith, who guides the destinies of Rockingham Park, has some scouts busy in these environs seeking horses for a special race on Bunker Hill Day, June 17. The race is an invitation affair at one mile with an endowment of 0,-000, to be known as the Bunker Hill Handicap. One of the features of the race is that no nomination fee will be exacted but each cforfor will Yn occoccorl 5 to pass the entry box. This is something of a departure for special races of this type but in so doing Smith puts in action a plan that he has studied and is convinced is the proper one. The nomination fee on an invitation race, he states, is something contrary to sportsmanship and is similar to inviting a man to dinner and then asking him to bring along his-own food. The scouts, busy here on the proposed event, have come up with several promises after contacting some of the leading menages stabled at the three Long Island tracks. AAA June 17 is a Thursday and on that afternoon Aqueduct has no salient stake or handicap, the co-features being a six-furlong: sprint and a distance event at one and one-sixteenth miles. The distance event . will recruit starters from the ranks of non-winners of two races of ,500 each. The sprint affair is for four-year-olds and over listed in the classified division which have not won ,900 since March 31. Bunker Hill Day, under the conditions, appears a golden opportunity lor Lou Smith and his New Hampshire track to extend invitations to owners whose horses will be idle, for on Saturday of that week the Gazelle for three-year-old fillies is the salient feature. AAA Trainer Bobby Dotter will ship the James Cox Brady horses to Monmouth Park tomorrow. He also reported that Artismo was coming back nicely and would be ready for racing in six weeks or so. The Brady horses will later be shipped to Saratoga Springs for that meeting . . . Miss Josephine Abercrombie of the Pin Oaks Farm is due in from her Texas home Tuesday for the remainder of this meeting and part of the Aqueduct session . . . Eugene Constantin, Jr., the Dallas, Tex., patron returned to his home following a visit of several days. His horses in charge of trainer Clyde Troutt will leave for Arlington Park this week for racing there until the opening of the Saratoga Springs meeting. Following that session the fall headquarters will as usual.be at Belmont Park . . . Judge Bernie Frank of Miami created no end of excitement in the clubhouse box section on Saturday, when he called for help to extinguish a blaze that had started in the flower boxes fronting the box in which he was a guest. Joe Carroll, bearing a water pitcher, headed the fire laddies much to the amusement of Danny Arnstein. Carroll weighs something over 300 pounds and the pitcher would not hold enough to quench the thirst of a pony in cold weather. AAA Leon "Jake" Swirbul of the state racing: commission made-his usual week end appearance . . . Nat E. Herzfeld, former top man at Tropical Park, was among those counted for the week end . . . R. W. Fincher, the Miamian, was a recent arrival. He has a draft of horses here with Bill Shrewbridge . . . Frank Stevens, the catering man left for Saratoga Springs to help usher in the trotting horse season and inspect the upstate track. AAA J. F. LaBoyne arrived from Los Angeles to attend the sale of horses in training to be held Wednesday and Thursday . . . Jockey Willie Passmore is due here from Delaware to ride Chevation, owned by the Foxcatcher Farm, in the Belmont Stakes. The colt is due tomorrow in charge of Dick Handlen . . . Tommy Meade, convalescing from a recent illness, made his first appearance the other day. He was bundled up in sweaters and a winter ulster . . . George Saab phoned up from Miami, he flew there on Saturday, that the new arrival at his home weighed in at six pounds 132 ounces. The boy is the fourth in the family ... Gainsboro Girl, owned by the Shawmut Stable, is due here from New England for her engagement in the Top Flight on Wednesday. This miss was a Florida stakes winner. . . . Jockey Tony DeSpirito is due here on Wednesday from Rockingham Park to ride Fascinator, owned by the Maine Chance Farm, in the Ten Fljght Handicap. ,t