Foreign News: Golden Guineas

Canadian society dates the beginning of summer from the running of the King’s Plate.

At first it was the Queen’s Plate, for, in 1859, Her Majesty Queen Victoria granted “50 golden guineas … to be run for at Toronto or such other place in Upper Canada as Her Majesty may appoint.” Because the tradition founded then is unbroken, Summer came to Canada last week after the running of the King’s Plate before the largest race-crowd to assemble at Woodbine Park, Toronto, since the War.

Top hats and soft hats mingled in cosmopolitan proximity as a crowd both smart and representative of all the provinces of Canada made the merry best of a damp drizzling afternoon. Vice-Royalty attended in the person of Freeman Freeman-Thomas Viscount Willingdon, Governor-General of Canada. In a glittering open coach with outriders and postilions, His Excellency and Viscountess Willingdon rode onto the course; and then, both lovers of horseflesh, strolled eagerly out to the paddock. Only at the last moment before the Plate did they seek the Governor-General’s box.

Fifty golden guineas ($255) and an added purse of $15,000 were “to be run for,” in the language of Victoria, Regina, et Imperatrix. As the barrier was sprung, 16 “platers” got away in an absolutely clean break after only four minutes at the post. . . . The field strung out. . . . Then, on the home stretch, two almost equally favored horses, Troutlet and Mr. Gaiety, had it nose to nose. Premier William Lyon Mackenzie King of Canada and Governor-General Willingdon both clapped glasses to their eyes, bent forward, tense, tried to see which horse crossed the winning mark first. Then the Willingdon grey topper and the King black topper revolved toward each other in puzzlement. Even with glasses they could not pick the winner. The judges said: “Troutlet.”

Said John Nixon, the trainer of this spry little filly, five times trainer of a horse that has won the King’s Plate: “I always knew Troutlet was game as a pebble.”