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BOOTS DURNELL TO RETURN American Turfman, Who Raced Abroad for Seventeen Years, Coming Back to Kentucky. LEXINGTON, Ky., April 19.— Charles E. "Boots" Durnell, who has the distinction of having won the Kentucky Derby in 1904 with Elwood, and who, with Kmil Herz, was part owner of McChesney when that good horse was at the height of his racing career, was here during the week looking at farms with a view to returning to America and locating in Kentucky as a breeder of thoroughbred horses. Durnell, who was born at New Albany, Ind., and reared at Ix uisville, getting his first racing experience with Seoggan Brothers, went from here Wednesday evening to Louisville to visit his father and sister, and stated that he would go from there at the week-end to New York to make preparations for return to Roumania, where he has been for a number of years in association with his brother. They have a farm about sixteen miles from Bucharest where they have a thoroughbred nursery and training ground. "We have some beautifully bred mares — mares good enough for any country on the globe," said Durnell, "and I have decided to go back to Roumania and sell off everything except these really gocd mares. They will be shipped to Kentucky. I have made arrangements to have them kept at one of Phil T. Chinns farms until 1 can secure a place of my own. "It is my purpose to get a plac? so equipped with stabling that I may establish a training ground in conjunction with the breeding side of the enterprise. "I have been over much of the world and have trained and raced horses in many countries, but there is nothing that appeals to me like Kentucky and her farms and horses." Durnell said that he has been away from the Inited States for seventeen years. He was in Russia when the Bolshevists took the country and slaughtered the royalty, ami was there through the worst of the fighting. He trained horses throughout the war in that country with the exception of eight days, when he was not able to get out of his house in Warsaw to go to the track because of the siege, the horses being cared for by men who lived at the stables. "The Roumanian mark used to be worth about five to the American dollar, but now it takes about 200 marks to make one dol- I j lar," said Durnell. "How about gold I marks?" he was asked. "Why, there is no gold in Roumania. All of the gold was sent into Russia for safe keeping and it is there yet. The Bolshevists got it with the rest of the country and all that was in it. There were five carloads of gold in the train on which I left Roumania for Russia. It was placed in a great vault, the Roumanians, of course, thinking it would be there when they wanted it, but they did not know what was to happen."
