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REMINISCENCES OF FOUR-MILE RACING ! A Louisville. Ky., September 0. The . Kentucky Endurance Stakes, at four miles, to be decided October 7 over the Churchill Downs course, revives more reminiscences than any other turf event of the last generation. In this connection correction may be in order of a mistaken impression that long-distance contests are productive of races that in the end are virtually no contests when one horse wins oft by himself without much of a struggle. The greatest Saratoga Cup race ever decided in the long history of that event, which was first run in 1807, was the dead heat, at two miles and a quarter, between Springbok and Ireakncss in 1S75. The time, 3:5GJ. is the record for the Saratoga Cup at two miles and a quarter. In IS75, at Long Branch, Bingaman and I?. P. Carver ran a dead heat at a mile and a half. Their owners refused to divide the pursp. The race was run a second time and it resulted again in a dead heat. Again the owners declined to split the purse. For the third time the horses were raced a mile and a half and for the third time they ran a dead heat. Once more the owners refused to divide the purse. . For the fourth time the horses were raced over the mile and a half route. In this contest the judges decided that Bingaman had won by a head. Old-timers still contend that if the other races were dead heats so was, the fourth one. Coming to a more recent date and dealing strictly with a four-mile race it is recalled that one of the most remarkable races of tills character was decided at Oakland, Cal.. April IS, 1007. This was the Thornton Handicap. Los Angeleno, an eight-year-old gelding, ridden by W. Knapp, won the event from Mamie Algol, then aged five, piloted by a California, jockey, A. Brown. Benvolio, ridden by Smith, ran third. Tho race was nip and tuck throughout between this trio. Los Angeleno won by a nose. Mamie Algol finished three lengths in front of Benvolio. The time, 7:1J. has been beaten but once in a four-mile race. On March 14. 1008. Big Bow won the same race in 7:10. which is the American record. A renewal of. the Thornton Stakes of 1007 several weeks later, resulted in the same close finish between Los Angeleno and Mamie Algol as in the first running. The Bowie Stakes, a great feature of the fall meeting at Pimlieo track, was, in 1S79. productive of a memorable struggle between Willie D. and Glenmore. Willie D. won the first heat by half a length in 7:291. Glenmore won tho second heat in 7:30. The final heat was won by Glenmore by a scant length in 7;315a evenly were these.- horses matched that if Glenniorcs rider had made a mistake Willie I, would have finished first. Glenmore was bred in Kentucky. Willie I, was foaled in Ohio. He still stands as tho best long-distance horse Ohio ever sent to the races. In 1S08, at San Francisco. Judge Denny barely beat Marplot four miles in 7:201. In 1S99 The Bachelor won in a hard drive from David Tenny, which forced him to run in 7:10. then American record time. So it will be observed that all four- mile races are not like the Ten Broeck-Mollic McCarthy four-mile race, a one-sided race. One of the remarkable early day races at four mile heats, though the time was slow, was run in the early thirties on Ixmg Island. Black Maria, daughter of American Eclipse ami Lady Lightfoot, by Sir Archy. was the winner. It required five heats to decide it. Black Maria, therefore, had to nice twenty miles to win the prize. Every heat was marked by a close finish. The time was S:O0, 7:55, S:i::, S:39, S:17. The old soldier tells with pride that he was in the battle of Shiioh. The veteran turfman, with equal pride, relates that he saw the Grey Eagle and Wagner race in Louisville on SeptenilKir 30, 1S39. This race, in all of the spectacular history of the Kentucky turf, never has been duplicated in tills commonwealth. The event was run on a Monday. Wagner won after a terrific battle. One of the heats was run in 7:44, which topped the Kentucky record for four miles in that day. The admirers of Grey Eagle were not satisfied with the race and asked for a second contest. The backers of Wagner, which was a South Carolina horse, agreed. Again the struggle was hotly contested. Grey Eagle won the first heat. Wagner took the second by a scant margin. The third heat was easy for Wagner, as the Kentucky horse broke down completely in the fourth mile. Grey Eagle is described as having been one of the handsomest horses in the world. He was whitish gray, with a Mowing mane and tail. Wagner, while owned in South Carolina, was Virginia-bred. He was a chestnut in color. It was no discredit for Grey Eagle to have been beaten by" Wagner, for, in sixteen starts, Wagner won fourteen races. Wagner was out of the famous Maria West, by Marian, to which traces today one of the best lines of American thoorughbred horses. It is a family so successful as to le styled "the No. 3 American line." James R. Keenes great stallion. Hen Brush, the sire of Delhi, Broomstick and other stars, belongs to the family of Wagner. Grey Eagle was out of Ophelia, by Wild Medley. His family, in late years, gave to the turf the great Hanover. If, away back in 1S39, the Grey Eagle and Wagner race made nearly every Kentuckian and Virginian stand on tip-toe, and still later, on July 4, 187S, when a record-breaking throng gathered at Churchill Downs to lichold Ten Broeck in a winning struggle against Mollie McCarthy an event never to be forgotten by the countless thousands who witnessed it under a glittering sky and in furnace-like atmosphere what then may be expected at Churchill Downs on October 7 when the greatest racers in America strive. for the richest turf prize of 1911 over the four-mile route V Today there is every method of quick, transportation, every facility for comfortably handling and taking care of the crowd. Where, in days -of long ago, the population amounted to hundreds, now it is thousands, and Col. M. J. Winn, manager of the Louisville Racing Association is justified in venturing to predict that tho crowd present on October 7. at the Downs, will surpass all former gatherings there, Derby Day or otherwise.
