view raw text
MAJOR GERRYS 1919 RACING STABLE Will Engage in Flat Racing as Well as Steeple-chasing Star Two -Year-Old in His String. NEW YORK, N. Y., February 27 Maj. Robert L. Gerry of New York, who for years paid little attention to any feature of racing except steeple-chasing, is coming back this year with a stable of flat runners of which smart things are predicted by the training colony at Belmont Park. Maj. Gerrys horses are being readied up for the racing that will begin in Maryland at Bowie track on April 1 by Rodman Patterson, one of the best known of Americas trotting horse trainers until last spring, when he succeeded his brother, the late Charles T. Patterson, as trainer of, the Gerry stable. The Gerry horses are going so handsomely Patterson expects to have them ready for the Havre de Grace meeting at the latest. The Havre de Grace meeting will run through the last week of April. The oldest horses of the string are the three -year-olds Balustrade, a bay son of Hanbridge and Oriental Queen, whicli won a couple of races last year, and Delaware, a bay son of Ormonde and Livonia, which was not so fortunate. Both these, colts have matured noticeably, and Patterson is confident they will make useful campaigners. Balustrade, a big masculine colt with fine racing make-up, really ought to" prove the better of the pair, because he maintained his -speed witli greater promise last year than did Delaware. Nevertheless, Delaware, a half-brother of The Finn, is the horse the Belmont Park trainers pick as the prospective three-year-old star of the stable. Probably Delaware owes the preference he enjoys among the trainers to his relationship to The Finn, which was a high-class long distance running" horse and easily the best of the Ogdens "since Sir Martins time. It is the intention of Patterson to find out what he can do early and send him along in the 5,000 Preakness at Pimlico if he proves worthy. The Gerry stable has no candidate for the Maryland Oaks, a ,000 race for three-year-old fillies at one mile and a sixteenth, which will be instituted at Pimlico in May, .because death, claimed Lady Rosebud, its star two-year-old, last fall. If Lady Rosebud had been spared Maj. Gerry would have every reason for thinking he had a prospective Oaks mare. After beating W. R. Coes exquisitely-bred and speedy Kiss Again in the Demoiselle Stakes at Yonkers in July, Lady Bosebud .went to Saratoga and finished second to Billy Kelly In theiFlash, second to Passing Shower in,,the! Spin-.. avrajwiad- third-to-Sweep On" andWar"Marvel"in the Grand Union Hotel Stakes. She ran on like a destined long-distance horse, and it was not against her that her dam was Ivory Bells, the mother of Old Rosebud. FEODOR A PROMISING COLT. . The most promising of the two-year-olds of the string are Feodor, a son of Ivan the Terrible and Nannie Hodge; Hackamore, a son of Flint Rock and Hour Hand; Shoals, a son of Danger Rock and Smirr. and Martha Finnell, a daughter of Dick Finnell and Martha Palmer. Hackamore and Danger Rock, both sons of, sons of Rock Sand, were Saratoga purchases. They came out of the Belmont sale. Hackamore, a showy black, is a near relative of Hourless, his dam, Hour Hand, a daughter of Ethelbert and Hautesse, being a half-sister of Hour Glass, the mother of Maj. Belmonts three-year-old star of 1917. Patterson got this youngster for 00, and he would not take ten times that for his chance of becoming a stake winning two-year-old. Hackamore is a colt of brawn and substance, stoutly underpinned and fast. He is going to come to hand early, too. Shoals is a big boned bay of ample heft. He also has shown speed. Danger Rock, the sire of Shoals, is one of the Rock Sand stallions Maj. Belmont has lent to the government for service at one of the remount stations. When Patterson went down into Kentucky late last autumn in search of a promising coming two-year-old or so, the Blue Grass sharps told him that Feodor was the best in the south. Patterson looked Feodor over and was soon of pretty much the same opinion. Feodor, a chestnut of perfect balance, short-legged, deep through the heart and splendidly coupled, is a brother of that one time highly capable gelding Hodge, and of much more masculine appearance. Patterson found that he had speed, and he believes the colt will come to form early. Martha Finnell, another result of tills excursion of Pattersons into the Blue Grass, is a sister of the Latonia Derby winner of 1917 A. K. Macombers Liberty Loan which will again race this year. She is a chestnut of strong construction" and fine manners. Many engagements have been made for her.
