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OUR FRIEND FURNISHES UPSET Lightly Eegarded Jumper Scores in Billy Barton Steeplechase Battleship Throws Rider After Slipping at atLast Last Jump Roustabout Defeated DefeatedIn In First Start BALTIMORE Mdf May 10 Mrs Verne Z Reed Jrs aged gelding Our Friend paying better than 20 to 1 won the seventh Billy Barton Steeplechase at three miles the most popular of Maryland spring jump ¬ ing events of the annual revival here this afternoon because Mrs Thomas H Somer villes Battleship the favorite slid as he landed at the last fence and relieved him ¬ self of his jockey Mr C K Bassett When Battleship came to grief Mrs Thomas H Somerville missed out on a fourth straight victory She scored in the Billy Barton chase of 1931 with Annapolis in 1932 with Tereus and last year with Battleship BattleshipTereus Tereus was an overnight nomination for todays revival but was scratched because Mrs Somerville and her trainer Selby Burch were supremely confident that Bat ¬ tleship could do the trick again Battleship after making up a hundred yards in the last turn of the field slipped as he landed be ¬ cause he made an overjump on a very slip ¬ pery turf turfA A steady rain featured by lightning and thunder was falling as Battleship Our Friend Areska Outlaw Kim and Drapeau galloped the three miles The result disap ¬ pointed a crowd of 8000 which had sent Battleship to the post the strongest kind of favorite in spite of the fact that he was packing 167 pounds and conceding from two to ten pounds to his opponents After him Areska Drapeau and Kim were taken in the order named namedMaking Making Battleship favorite in such races has for years been a habit of followers of Americas steeplechasing The misadventure of Battleship was the only disaster of the race Our Friend a son of Firm Friend and Sage Hen led by a big margin for two miles and a quarter with Battleship trailing Battleship began to catch his opponents in the back field on the last turn and he had just caught Our Friend which was palpa ¬ bly tiring and jumping badly when he slipped slippedOutlaw Outlaw took second place a long way back of Our Friend and he beat Areska easily Mr N Laing rode the winner with rare judg ¬ ment The Billy Barton chase is named for Howard Bruces famous American jumper which finished second in 1928 in the Liver ¬ pool Grand National Steeplechase to Tip perary Tim Since its inaugural the year of that Grand National Billy Barton has always led the field to the starting place He did so again today with Hughes Dillon in a pink coat in the saddle The old horse did not look his sixteen years Billy Barton won a Cuban Derby at Havana in 1921 1921Alfred Alfred Hennen Morris a steward of The Jockey Club won the first race easily with his Bucellas colt Orthoprism vhich he bred in Carroll County Maryland This was a I race for Marylandbred twoyearolds over four and a half furlongs Orthoprism and a running mate called Canimar and the son of Bucellas were the favored entry Orthoprism was considerably the best He took the lead from Gay Blade after a quar ¬ ter of a mile and was in hand at the end
