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A ,000,000 Race— No . Other Than Kentucky /« Derby . /« I LATEST DERBY ODDS | £ — $ LOUISVILLE, Ky.. May 1.— The latest odds quoted on the Derby field follow. Horse. Wt. Horse. Wt. fBanister 10-1 Sevh Heaven. .100-1 ttMerry Pete.. 3-1 §Forest Play. . . 8-1 Indian Broom.. 12-1 §Grand Slam. . . 8-1 He Did 20-1 JBrevity 7-5 I Dnieper 7-5 JJSangreal 8-1 ttGranville 3-1 Gold Seeker... 20-1 Bold Venture.. 15-1 Coldstream .... 15-1 tBien Joli 10-1 Holl Image 50-1 JtThe Fighter. . 8-1 Silas 100-1 tfTeufel 3-1 f E. R. Bradley entry. ttBelair Stud Stable-Wheatley Stable entry. I Mrs. P. A. B. Widener-J. E. Widener entry. HMilky Farm Farms Stable entry. SiBomar Stable entry. entry;entry®rene Z ..§ htr rtfi NOT A FAIRY TALE How Americas Outstanding Thoroughbred Classic Has Grown Into Million Dollar Turf Event A million dollar race. Not fiction, but a reality. The sixty-first running of the Kentucky Derby was an epochal one in the history of that famous race. It marked the advent of the Kentucky Derby as a million-dollar race. A total of ,017,225 has been paid to sixty-one winners from Aristides to Omaha. This does not include the large sums paid to the horses which finished second and third. Only two other American stake races, the Futurity and the Belmont Stakes, surpass the Kentucky Derby in total net values to the winners. The Futurity is the richest of all American stake events, the colossal sum of ,238,745 going to the winners of this greatest of two-year-olds contests from 1888 to 1935. The Belmont Stakes has paid its winners from 1867 to 1935 a total of ,079,290. The story of the Kentucky Derby has been told and retold each year, losing none of its appeal, interest and glamour by constant repetition. Each new recital brings forth much that has been forgotten or overlooked; it likewise reveals new laurels garnered during six decades of turf-making history. Perhaps it will be news to many and surely interesting to all to know that the Kentucky Derby was instituted as a racing stimulant, a turf tonic sorely needed at the time. Continued on eleventh page. MILLION-DOLLAR RACE Continued from first page. Racing was at a low ebb in Kentucky and in fact in America when Col. M. Lewis Clark founded the Louisville Jockey Club in 1874. History shows only a few tracks of any consequence in the country, with meetings limited and purse values exceedingly small. Kentucky breeders were seri- . ously considering closing their farms and j the matter was discussed with Col. Clark with a view of suggesting a remedy. It was agreed that it was necessary to create a demand for the thoroughbred and this only could be accomplished by the formation of a jockey club and the establishing of a number of high class stake races and by reason of the value of such stakes bring about a demand for the race horse. The result of this meeting was that in 1872 Colonel Clark visited England and France to study the system of stakes and the general conduct of racing. On his return to Louisville The Jockey Club was organized and the first meeting held at Churchill Downs in the spring of 1875, beginning on May 17 and continuing for six days. The Kentucky Derby, patterned after the worlds famous Epsom Derby, was the big attraction of the I opening day program and thus began a race which is now the outstanding three-year-old event on the American turf and which last year surpassed the million-dollar mark in monies paid to its sixty-one winners. Incidentally it may be well to call attention to the fact that the Epsom Derby, after which, as mentioned above, the Kentucky Derby was patterned, probably surpasses all races in the world in total monies paid its winners, ! the enormous sum of ,514,455 having been paid to the owners of the horses finishing first each year from 1780 to 1935. The old, trite saying "money makes the mare go" is strikingly illustrated in the j histories of the greatest stakes of the ; world. All of these classics of the racing J world have gained the fame and popularity in which they are held by the notable horses which met in them for supremacy. Racing associations, to secure the best horses of the land, had to offer attractive and well endowed stake events. This is true of the Kentucky Derby. While it began in a mod- ! est way with values small, it was not until | Col. Matt Winn took over the reigns of j management and increased the added money in the Derby that it really gained national and later world prominence. The first Kentucky Derby had only ,000 | added and paid the winner Aristides ,850, the smallest sum in its entire history. The next lowest was ,970, which went to Hal-■ ma in 1895. The highest net value in the I first thirty-six years was ,460 in 1890, when J Riley won, and it was the only time the i ,000 mark was passed until 1913, the year j the longest priced winner, Donerail, surprised all by carrying off the prize. Done- j rail received ,475 and paid at the odds of i 92 to 1, a record which still stands. The following year the value jumped to ,125, this sum going to one of its greatest winners, the marvelous Old Rosebud, which established ■ new record of 2:03% for the mile and a | quarter, at which the Derby was and has ! been run since 1896. Old Rosebuds time re-j mained the record for the race until 1931, when Twenty Grand lowered it to 2:01%. Then really began the build-up of the Kentucky Derby under the genial and successful I Colonel Winn. In 1919 the value passed the j 0,000 mark, the 0,000 in 1922 and the ! highest in Reigh Counts year, 1928— 5,375. Though the depression was responsible for a reduction in the last two years, it has 0,-000 for its 1936 running and will pay the winners close to or more than that sum. Little did Col. M. Lewis Clark dream when he established the Kentucky Derby back in 1875 that one day the "child of his Imagination" would grow into the outstanding i thoroughbred race in America and that its j winners would receive over a million dol- i lars. The latter development belongs to j the ever genial and probably one of the i greatest of racing impresarios of all times —Col. Matt J. Winn. * .
