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LATONIA DERBY PROSPECTS ♦ Outlook Bright for the Best Race in Its History. ♦ Black Gold the Hope of the West— Mad Play and Other Stars Coming from Kast to Attempt His Overthrow. ♦ ■ The Liatonia Derby of 1924 promises to be the best in the history of the race. It will be run on Saturday, June 28, when there is every hope that the delayed sunshine and warmth of summer time will have superceded the unseasonable cold and rainy weather that has prevailed this spring to date. Pleasing outdoor conditions are all that is necessary to make the occasion a notable one. The Derby itself, with an increased value over preceding years — it has 5,000 added for 1924, and should ten of the 135 eligibles start, the gross value will exceed 0,000 — has attracted the cream cf the three-year-old division with the best of that age in training certain to be among the starters. The East will probably have six or more representatives in the Latonia Derby. Black Gold, the Golden Jubilee Derby winner at Louisville, is a Latonia Derby eligible and if he should be fortunate enough to win there will be a bonus of ,000 for him. This bonus has been offered by the Kentucky Jockey Club year after year for a decade, but it has never been paid. John Gund, Royal II., Dodge, Liberty Loan, Johren, Be Frank, Upset, Brother Batch, Thibodaux and The Clown, Latonia Derby winners since 1914, either did not start in renewals in the great race at Churchill Downs, or were beaten in them. Upset, son of Whisk Broom II. and Pank-hurst, the only horse that ever went past the judges with his nose in front of Man o Wars, a feat he accomplished in the San-ford renewal at Saratoga in 1919, a sprint of six furlongs for two-year-olds, came nearer earning this extra ,000 than any other of these colts. BEAT GLADIATOR BY A HEAD. Beaten a short head in the Kentucky Derby of 1920 by J. S. Cosdens Paul Jones, he in turn defeated Gladiator by a head in the Latonia Derby revival of that year. Upset raced under the Eton blue and black of Harry Payne Whitney, whcse stout colt Transmute, son of Broomstick and Traverse, winner last season of revivals of the Hudson and Tremont Stakes, and contender in the recent Preakness at Pimlico, is a fairly sure starter in the coming Latonia Derby. Transmute, a natural long distance runner, is sound and training well. He is the only Whitney three-year-old that looks formidable this spring. Unless Transmute comes through, Whitney will have no such distance runner as either Upset was in 1920 or Johren was in 1918. The Latonia Derby revival of 1918 was one of a number of rich and important stakes won by Johren in his three-year-old year. Others were renewals of the Suburban Handicap, Belmont Stakes, Lawrence Realization and Saratoga Cup. Johren is now at stud service and is sending winners to racing. Run at a mile and a half, the Latonia Derby is a genuine Derby as to distance. But because it is annually renewed after runnings of the Preakness, Kentucky Derby, Withers and Belmont, it is not a weight-forage race. It would not be wise to have it such. Winners of considerable sums as three-year-olds must pack scale weight — 126 pounds. But non-winners of 5,000 are allowed five pounds, non-winners of ,000 eight, and maidens twelve. BIG WINNERS PENALIZED. Under these conditions there is small fear of Preakness, Kentucky Derby and Belmont winners frightening less successful horses away from the barrier. Nellie Morse, Preakness winner cf this season, is not in the Latonia Derby. She was not in the Kentucky Derby. When the rich spring races for three-year-olds closed in the winter, Alex Gordon, trainer for Bud Fisher, purposely withheld the nomination of Nellie Morse from the Kentucky and Latonia Derby renewals to prevent his being tempted to overdo her in the event she proved a good mare. He figured that a race of one mile and a furlong in the Preakness would not be as harmful as races of one mile and a quarter and one mile and a half in the Blue Grass countrys Derbies and might not prevent her from beating first-class fields of three-year-old fillies in the Kentucky and Latonia Oaks renewals. Potential Eastern starters in the coming Derby with Transmute are William Woodwards Aga Khan, Flames Sun Spot and Sun-shot ; Benjamin Blocks Thorndale, Gifford A. Cochrans Revenue Agent, H. C. Fishers Mr. Mutt, Mrs. Payne Whitneys The Vintner; Edward Beale McLeans Modest, John E. Maddens Check, Thomas Fortune Ryans Laurano, Plough Boy, Mino and Faenza ; Harry F. Sinclairs Eaglet, Mad Play, Finn Lag and Bracadale ; Lee Rosenbergs Sun Pal and Sun Audience, Frank M. Taylors Abu Ben Ahdem, Edward F. Simms Happy Thoughts, and J. S. Cosdens Nautical and Lord Baltimore II. Black Golds most formidable Eastern rival is Mad Play, according to good judges who saw the Rancocas colt win the Belmont Stakes. Trainer S. C. Hildreth has never lost faith in Mad Play, and the success of the brother of Mad Hatter in the Belmont Stakes was most pleasing to that astute conditioner of horses. Hildreth is pointing Mad Play for Latonias big race and he expects the son of Fair Play and Madcap to re-treive the honors lost in the Kentucky Derby. It was thought that Sarazen would be ready for the Latonia Derby, but trainer Max Hirsch says the speedy little gelding will be an absentee and will hardly be seen under colors before late in the Saratoga meeting. The other three-year-olds from the East most likely to go west for the Derby appear at this time to be Aga Khan, Revenue Agent, Nautical, Mr. Mutt, Laurano, Plough Boy, Mad Play, Eaglet, Sun Audience, Samaritan, Abu Ben Ahdem and Transmute. To meet these invaders the West will have besides Black Gold, such as Beau Butler, Baffling, Chilhowoe, Altawood, King Gorin II. and others though it will be the little black that won the Kentucky Derby so impressively that will carry the hope of Kentucky and the West in general to again best the best of the East and incidentally win his fourth derby of the year. i
