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. . reflections! I By Nelson Dunstan 1 Corydon Qualifies for Suburban Chicago Special Seeks Champions Fairaris Has Withers Following Arlington Park to Be Commended NEW YORK, N. Y., May 20. Race fans are hoping the Long Island Railroad will make Jamaica, Forest Hills and Woodside stops during the period of auto restrictions. . . . Delaware Park is second only to Belmont Park in the acreage of American race courses. . . . Big Game is expected to be the shortesf-priced Epsom Derby favorite in many seasons. . . . Ted Williams of California is back at his old desk in the Arlington-Washington Park publicity office. . . . Pete Bostwick will be absent from the saddle for a few weeks, due to a minor operation. ... On Tuesday there was a wager made at Belmont that Alsab would not come within a second of his 1:35 at Belmont last fall. He must win or its all off. There was also a good-sized wager, horse for horse, Alsab versus Fairaris, the proviso being that one must be returned the winner. . . . Fred B. Koontz, Oklahoma oilman and breeder, is a commuter between Belmont Park and Washington, D. C. . . . Race fans who wager but J2 resent Ed Sullivans crack, "this ragamuffin of the race tracks, this moron of the mutuels." Says one, who knows him, "he is only libeling himself, for he never bet more than a deuce on a horse or anything else in his whole life." Corydon qualified for the Suburban when he won the Lamplighter Handicap at Belmont Park on Tuesday. Running the one and one-quarter miles in 2:03, the Greentree racer defeated six others, including the Peruvian champion, Meissen, who was making his first start since Florida . racing. Corydon, who was in the money in 20 of his 27 starts last season, was making his fourth start and scoring his first victory of the 1942 season. The manner in which he raced and the time of his race must have been gratifying to John Gaver, as Third Degree was defeated in both the Toboggan and Metropolitan at Belmont Park. Swing and Sway, the third Greentree eligible for the Suburban, FRED B. KOONTZ Successful Okla- ran third to Fairaris and Dispose in homa breeder, is a commuter between the fifth race at Belmont last Satur-Belmont Park and Washington, D. C. day and like Third Degree, has yet to win a race this year. Corydon, should he start in the Suburban, will face the best field he has encountered since he became a member of the handicap division. Perus champion, Meissen, ran well in the early stages, then dropped back to finish in last place. He is in the hands of the veteran Preston Burch and, like Sorteado, may suddenly "find himself" to become a useful member of the older ranks. Many of these invaders require long and patient conditioning. He, too, is a Suburban eligible, but will hardly be a starter. With Cottesmore arid Ossabaw on the sidelines, the Charles L. Appleton Steeplechase, feature event on Tuesdays card, was not much of a contest. Especially so, after the highly regarded Bath and his rider abruptly parted company during the running. Tomorrows feature will be the Belmont Spring Maiden Steeplechase, at about two miles, for four-year-olds and older jumpers who were maidens at the time of closing. It would not be surprising if the spectators witnessed a much better contest than was the case on Tuesday. Two more important jumping events are still oh the Belmont Park stake list, the Corinthian Steeplechase Handicap on Tuesday, May 26, and the Meadow Brook Steeplechase Handicap on Tuesday, June 2. The latter event, a co-feature of the Peter Pan Handicap on that day, has ,000 added and is at about two. and a half miles, for four-year-olds and older jumpers. Cottesmore and Ossabaw are both eligibles, but if this pair are to meet Bath before the jumpers journey upstate it will have to be in the Corinthian, for which all three are eligible. This should be a chase well worth seeing, providing, of course, all three answer the bugle. Rokeby Stables Redlands, winner of the Charles L. Appleton Steeplechase, is eligible for both the Corinthian and the Meadow Brook. Warren Wright, owner of Whirlaway, has made it clear he was not issuing a challenge, but that he would be willing to do anything with Whirlaway that would help the defense program now being arranged by John D. Allen and Ben Lindheimer of Arlington Park. He concluded by saying that, should Whirlaway run and win, he would be very glad to donate the net proceeds of that purse to the same cause. That sounds exactly like Warren Wright, and it is hoped, for the sake of the ,000,000 which the turf hopes to contribute to the -War Relief cause, that Ben Lindheimer is successful in obtaining enough horses to make this a truly outstanding event of the 1942 season. As we see it, it would be best if they confined it to older horses, for, while it is true that the top three-year-olds will be busy with such events as the Belmont Stakes, Classic, American Derby, Travers, Lawrence Realization and other events for that division, we doubt, with the possible exception of Alsab, whether any of the three-year-olds around now would be capable of holding their own with older horses. But even though Alsab should win the Withers and the Belmont, there is a question in our mind how he would fare at a mile and a quarter against Whirlaway, Attention and others in the older division. According to a wire from Chicago, we erred in saying that those in the "Windy City" were demanding a Whirlaway-Alsab match. "What we Chicagoans would like to see would be the best horses meet up with Whirlaway, he being the one we consider the greatest horse in America today." Being a New Yorker ourselves, we know little of what is demanded in Chicago, but we certainly hope that John D. Allen and Ben Lindheimer are successful in their endeavors. For, as we said in a recent column, 1 "while it would be hard to improve on the Arlington meeting, these officials are mainly concerned with a race which would be an all-out effort for war relief." It is going to be no cinch to raise ,000,000, and the plans which the Arlington officials have in mind would go far in the realization of that figure. When you come right down to it, Arlington Park will not benefit one penny by this race, their only desire being to give Chicagoans a race they want to see and in the doing aid the American turf in keeping faith with the pledge they have made to War Relief agencies. Lindheimer and his associates can bring this race to a fulfillment if enough owners are able to look at it in the same light that Warren Wright already does, as shown in his release to this paper yesterday.
