King's Plate

Oldest horse-race in the U.S. is not the Kentucky Derby but Saratoga's Travers Stakes, first run in 1864. Oldest consecutively run race in North America is not the Travers Stakes but the King's Plate, run last week at Toronto, Canada. Queen Victoria, on petition of the Toronto Turf Club, put up the original prize in 1859. After her death in 1901, the name of the race was changed from the Queen's Plate. That few U.S. race followers know much about the King's Plate is not extraordinary. The field is limited to horses foaled and trained in Ontario and owned by British subjects. Few of the animals thus qualified are above the grade of what are known at U.S. tracks as selling platers.

Not at all perturbed by the quality of entrants in Canada's greatest racing classic, 18,000 Toronto socialites and plain people last week swarmed into Woodbine Park. In honor of the Silver Jubilee, more flags than usual were attached to the white buildings and the grandstand above the lake. All that was missing was the parade of scarlet-coated escorts, with silver-plated helmets, breastplates and plumes, who usually accompany the Governor General in his official carriage. Unpopular Lord Bessborough last week sent word that he was indisposed. Lady Bessborough went in his place, slipped quietly into the vice-regal box until time for the main race, when she scuttled off to the judges' stand.

Greatest name in Canadian racing, as in Canadian whiskey distilling, is Seagram. Horses owned by the late Joseph Seagram and his son Edward Frowde Seagram, whose stables are not far from his mash vats at Waterloo, Ontario, had won the King's Plate 19 times before. Last week, paunchy little Distiller Seagram, dressed in a funereal overcoat, a gay, grey topper, watched his horses win the first and third races on the program before his black and yellow silks were carried to the post for the King's Plate by two fillies named Sally Fuller and Gay Sympathy. A few minutes later, when Sally Fuller had won by three lengths, with Chickpen second and Gay Sympathy third, he stepped up to the judges' stand where Lady Bessborough handed him his prizes: a silver cup, 50 guineas from King George, and $5,000.

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