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COLORFUL STORY OF DERBY Interesting Discription of the Day and Attending Incidents j a Xarratirc of the Race Itself Rather a Picture of the Crowd and the Surrounding BY HERMAN B DUTSCH LOUISVILLE Ky May 15 Those mem ¬ bers of that exclusive body known as the human race who happen to be in and about Louisville this evenin suh are to a greater or less degree demented Mostly to a greater degree And with reason As many of them as could be packed into this historic race course and that was quite a few more than any mere layman would have thought pos ¬ sible have witnessed what it is given to few people to see In all history the same stable has been privileged to place the bearers of its silks both first and second in the Ken ¬ tucky Derby only three times And Col Edward Riley Bradley Kentuckian did it twice What is more the second time he did it was today and immediately thereafter the entire crowd winners and losers mil ¬ lionaires and paupers social leaders and shop girls owners and stable boys promptly went mad madLittle Little Albert Johnson and young Blind wore the green hooped white silks of Colonel Bradleys Idle Hour Farm Stable Johnson wore a cap of scarlet and Blind one of green That was to show the world that Johnson was riding the stables choice Bubbling Over which already had justified his nomen ¬ clature by winning the Champagne Stakes as a twoyearold last year When the jockeys flashed across the finish in the van of the others the crowd went mad when they returned to salute the judges the crowd went madder and when Col Edward It Bradley came to the stand to receive the gold cup of victory from the hands of the mayor of New York the crowd went completely demented and stayed that way for a considerable period periodWhether Whether you call it the Derby the Darby the Doiby or the Duhby suh the event iself remains the same a triple extract of Elks Convention news boy picnic and annual half price bargain sale with dashes of New Lon ¬ don Yale bowl Polo Grounds and Olmpic stadium thrown in for seasoning seasoningNo No mere layman can figure out what the attraction is and the professional neither desires nor needs to figure it out He feels it and that is enough Back of the barns on the far side of the Churchill Downs track is a little enclosed car that is dun with the road dust of nearly twelve states and in that car two men have been sleeping and liv ¬ ing for the past three days just to enable them to see two minutes of striving on the part of a dozen of the bluestblooded patri ¬ cian thoroughbreds that the breeders of a nation could rear to the threeyearold age Whatever it was the attraction brought a bulging flivverload of jacketed and sweat tered students from the University of Iowa Continued on twelfth page COLORFUL STORY OF DERB Continued from first pngc to Louisville Friday night their ancient vehicle retaining a semblance to its original form by dint of much haywire string and one suspects chewing gum The same at ¬ traction brought a number of beefily con ¬ spicuous figures who had evidently gone to considerable pains and to the ends of the earth perhaps to make themselves look turfy Overcoats and suits alike bore staring patterns each single fibre of which shrieked continuously for deliverance from its neigh ¬ bor borThe The same attraction brought more than two hundred private cars more than two hundred special trains apparently more than ten thousand automobiles and buggies six ¬ teen airplanes and a flotilla of oldtime river packets all were modes of conveyances for a frienzicd crowd bent on a visit to Churchill Downs DownsAMO AMO THOSE PRESENT PRESENTStout Stout matrons with children come now Herbert and motherll show you where the jockeys so by Stacomb Steve and all his ilk hatless to give the slickum a chance for properly public display plusfoured within an inch of fashion lean wiry mountaineers from the Blue Ridge and drawling tobacco farmers from the Blue Grass lands and from the fertile river bottoms Flapper Fan and all her sisters to say nothing of her cousins and her aunts and her maternal forebears up to and including greatgrandmothers men in spats and fourinch collars with all the appurtenances thereto speaking of polo at Coronado men in the best twenty dollar handmedowns that Feiblemeyers Depart ¬ ment Store had in stock speaking of the good beer you iised to be able to get at Airs authentic Paul Poiret frocks and the latest modes from the Veel de Pairee mode shoppe on Main street Churchill Downs stirred restlessly into a realization of the fiftysecond renewal of the Kentucky Derby long before dawn Heavy eyed little exercise boys and shuffling stable employes well muffled owners and trainers all shivering a little in the grey chill day ¬ break of what is gestingly referred to as the Sunny South There he goes thats Pom pey galloping with the pony say izzit gonna rain what Gee if I only knew was it gonna rain or would the track be fast theyre only giving Bubbling Over a light workout Look theres Bradleys car Say howja like to have what hes got bat on Bubbling Over today hey howja V Naw it aint gonna rain The smokes going straight up in the air and thats a sure sign has Al got his licenses and badges yet who Him They aint even gonna start him Hes only put in there in case it should rain and the trackd be soft say izit gonna rain izzit and he just did the last quarter in 24 so whaddaya think theyll biggest crowd theyve ever had and hell whadda I care if it is Derby day the horses got to work just the same say izzit gonna rain izzit izzitGET GET AX EAHLT STAKT STAKTTn Tn the meantime the crowd has been tric ¬ kling in at the gates Oh sure Just about dawn They want the coveted seats at the clubhouse end of the baby grand the little grandstand beyond the grandstand proper Theyve had a couple sinkers and some Java downtown and theyre packing sandwiches for lunch right with them Besides there were a lot of them who could not find sleep ¬ ing space last night A lot Some of them the more fortunate ones found chairs in the various hotel lobbies and slept thus before the public gaze each passing moment adding to the growth of beard that sprouted without regard to Derby Day Others still more for ¬ tunate hired automobiles and yellow cabs for the night making themselves as com ¬ fortable as possible under the circumstances with wadded topcoat for pillow and the muf ¬ flers murmur for lullaby Others walked the pavements mingling with the crowd dur ¬ ing the early hours comparatively early that is and just walking after that As long as they were walking they might as well walk toward the Downs too So there were a lot of them at the gate by the dawns early light lightIt It was a crowd that never grew less either By midforenoon the grounds literally looked filled save for the boxes which for Derby Day are reserved reservedBy By 31 oclock lines and ques had already formed in front of all the advance mutuel windows places where the tickets were sold from midmorning on for the Derby bettors exclusively By noon Churchill Downs was jammed The sky might be gray and over ¬ cast but the flags of all nations snapping from the lanyards of the big centerfJeld flag pole were bright enough to supply color and sparkle A few drops of rain might fall as though carelessly slopped over the edge of some huge disc an infinite distance above the track Heaven and the government weather bureau were still fast This was going to be a Derby as was a Derby with real champions pitted against each other And after all post time was not so far away The first race began at 145 145In In the meantime the southeast forty of the northwest quarters section of Bedlam had been moved bodily to a hen perched under the eaves of the clubhouse known as to the cognescenti as the press box But it was an orderly confusion No shouting No shrillness save from the chattering of telegraph instruments Much movement of wielders of still cameras and the ubiquitous movie men perched themselves in eeries where only cameramen who admittedly are always eager to rush in where Angels fear to tread could perch themselves Broad ¬ casting instruments and a microphone to be installed where J L Dempsey who had called the last thirty Derbys would call the fiftysecond renewal for the benefit of the rest of the universe universeKFIER KFIER OF THE INFIELD INFIELDVery Very calm in the midst of all the excite ¬ ment the great antithesis is industriously hunting fleas as he makes himself at home in the infield which he seems to rule He is a little wisp of a dog whose color is some ¬ thing that only could be determined by an extensive series of experiments of all the known brands of cleansing fluids and com ¬ pounds known to science His breeding is equally vague and the nearest approach to it in language of the turf would be curmongrel by chance with collateral bloodlines that seem to go back to a pair of old Congress gaiters but his breeding shows that he owns the track where approximately a dozen of thoroughbreds whose ancestry runs back for generations the most accurately charted trees of the family kingdom are striving for the greatest honor they can win in America AmericaThe The crowd of course pays no attention to him and he returns the compliment com ¬ posedly scratching fleas Let em all shout his bearing seems to say Itll be my track before its over overThe The pressure is tremendous in the stands in the boxes on the front and rear lawns in the betting rings The special counters where advance betting on the Derby exclusively is accepted are doing a land office business from the long line of twodollar windows to the openings where men place wagers in hundred dollar units Fashionably gowned women and dowdy ones grayhaired matrons and brighteyed flappers are battling their way to the sandwich counters and are munch ¬ ing the spoils of battle unashamed EATtrG THE XERO HOUR HOURThe The opening races are run but it is not these the crowd has come to see They do not hold the attraction that has gathered them in Louisville from all of a continent The cheering is tremendous but it has a per ¬ functory timber There is a long wait The rowd packs closer and a visible tension is laid upon all of them Pompey is led out across the track and minces by nervously to the plaudits of the crowd Then there is a roar Bagenbaggage one of the Idle Hour entries is led out and then to the paddock paddockFinally Finally the notes of the bugle blowing the assembly Whoopee Wheeee Shrill voice and deep soprano squeal and basso profundo roar mingle in great shout This was what the people had waited a year for Out upon the track they walk sedately those thirteen patricians of the turf that a kings ransom could not buy an option on Theres the Idle Hour colors and thats Pompey But say look at Canter and Display They go down to the turn double back and walk se ¬ dately a quarter of a mile back to the widened point at the head of the stretch that is reserved for Derby starts And then all of the roaring that has gone before is eclipsed in the one single purposed shout Theyre off offLook Look at the form chart If you want a de ¬ tailed description of what happened during those two minutes and three and fourfifths seconds secondsTheres Theres probably only one pair of eyes in the country that could have correctly an ¬ alyzed it all and the owner of those eyes Jack L Dempsey is up in the angle of the press box calling the race step by step and horse by horse with the cold emotionless calm with which his always works while microphones hurl the words out into un ¬ charted space and telegraph instruments still their hysterical chatter to get the chart Scarlet cap and green flashed first under the wire and the crowd rose as one man one mad man you understand to acclaim that noble victory victoryThen Then came two other races but the zest was gone The Derby hail been run and the name of Bubbling Over would occupy for a year in letters of gold and placque over the runway from paddock to track The attrac ¬ tion was over It will be a year before an ¬ other crowd or rather the same crowd for Derby crowds are changeless f els once again that same Incomparable thrilL
