This year's race features nine first-time Indy 500 starters and nine others with only one or two prior starts here.

The track was alive with the sound of tips because yesterday's card included two maiden races for 2-year-old colts, both filled with blue-blooded first-time starters.

The first of the two maiden events drew a field of nine, seven of them first-time starters.

The Tigers will have 14 first-time starters against Cornell at Ithaca.

Take a tip from the harness-horse people, and make all first-time starters qualify in nonbetting races.

How can a thoroughbred-horse player figure out a maiden race that has, say, six first-time starters with nothing in their records but short workouts?

He was one of seven first-time starters in the game.

A field of nine went to the post, seven of them first-time starters, including the heavily tipped Lustra and Close Union.

Conventional wisdom says that first-time starters at the Masters are basically fodder for the field.

Miami Coach Butch Davis believes the normal positioning of this game on each team's schedule has made it particularly tough for first-time starters.