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Charles Hatton THE JUDGES STAND By Charles Hatton Strategic Preakness on Tap Ends Brilliant Pimiico Meet BALTIMORE Md May 7 Of course Count Fleet will win the Preakness unless something strange happens There always are a few cheerless defeatists around to bet that something will happen even to such deathandtaxes favorites as is Mrs John Hertz amazing colt However the extremely small field and the further fact that Count Fleet can surmount some ¬ thing the worst of the racing luck rather minimizes any prospects this Run for the Blackeyed Susans will result so unsatisfactorily On this subject of cataclysmic upsets Mort Mahony who by no means is a rampant pessimist meditated that The Boyle Sets Stage at Belmont Tedious on Comeback Trail best horse does not always win you know Why I once saw a 1100 shot break down in a match race Then there was that time up at Saratoga when the noted handicap horse Claude lost a match to a twoyearold through a disqualification Now you may say this is a typical totemanagers point of view but the veteran who supervises the Pimiico machines was simply reminiscing and we dare say he never gave the commercial angle a thought This Preakness promises to develop an interest ¬ ing display of strategy for it seems unlikely any rival is eccentric enough to assume the thankless task of racing The Count into the ground at all willingly The C F I W Club confidently predicts all strategies will evaporate when The Count starts pouring it on They point out that extraordinarily enough he is a twodimensional champion in that he is not a confirmed frontrunner but has come from behind when Longden considered that the discreet course courseMarylands Marylands turf classic always has provided a significant contest and occa ¬ sionally a more spectacular keenly competitive affair than is the Derby For instance War Admiral beat Pompoon off at Louisville then experienced a near thing here at Baltimore defeating Jerry Louchheims stout colt historic inches Again there was High Quests unforgettable Freakness in which he unexpectedly beat his stablemate Cavalcade after that stretchrunner had captured the Derby by an impressive margin marginWe We only mention all this to illustrate the point that in some springs it turns out the Preakness is a climax to the Derby and not an an ti climax climaxIt It may or may not prove pertinent but if anyone is interested the Preakness time standard is a flat 157 established by Alsab in 1942 The Pimiico mark is Riverlands 156 hung out as recently as last Saturdays Dixie DixieCount Count Fleet has abbreviated so many records with such casual abandon both in workouts and actual conflict that there was some disappointment when he left Whirlaways Derby record intact However the Downs strip was not manicured for the sixtyninth Run for the Roses as when opulent Mr Longtail won it Moreover there was no occasion for any onslaught on the record Count Fleet had thoroughly discouraged all rivals at the end of a mile after they challenged him in relays On this unimportant subject John Hertz observes accurately that Longden would have been making unnecessary use of Count Fleet to have ridden him out in an effort to beat the record after having beaten his field fieldThe The Preakness will conclude one of the Maryland Jockey Clubs most successful spring meetings And that assuredly is taking in quite a lot of territory on the calendar for the Maryland Jockey Club is 200 years old this season and George Washington was among the charter members when the association held forth at Annapolis It moved to the hilltop in 1870 1870Tomorrow Tomorrow afternoon will be a festive one also at Jamaica where eyewitnesses of Attentions Dixie performance aver he will garner the Grey Lag Handicap HandicapThis This breathless weekend will be followed Monday by the Westchester Racing Associations inaugural of its stakesspangled spring meeting of 24 days at Belmont Park the Ascot of America Beginning with the opening days Fashion and Toboggan the features run a heady gamut of such famous annuals as the Metro ¬ politan Withers Coaching Club Suburban Meadow Brook Steeplechase National Stallion and Belmont Stakes If there is anything certain in American racing it is that the Westchester Associations lavish array of stakes will attract all the turfs Big Names that are ready for competition competitionIt It goes almost without saying too in view of Jamaicas signal success that Belmont Parks season will finish far out of the red Especially with a break in rail service serviceNeil Neil Boyle has the Hempstead Turnpike course looking its eyefilling best this spring It is easily the most commodious park in the country though its seating capacity is not so large actually as that at Churchill Downs Belmont almost certainly will attract larger crowds than will Aqueduct thus earn Governor Deweys blessing as the site of the dispossessed Spa meeting meetingRecent Recent reports to the effect that Lexingtons fall sales will be conducted in concurrence with Keenelands meeting may prove quite true But their geographical juxtaposition is another matter entirely For it is pretty generally understood in the Blue Grass that Keenelands autumn season will be conducted at Churchill Downs In spite of an unusual sequence of rainy days the spring meeting which the Keene land organization staged at Louisville proved easily the most successful in its young history And there is no assurance now that the wartime restrictions forcing this shift to Derbytown will be relaxed to warrant restoring the associations activities to its own domain Lieut Alfred Vanderbilt would have been delighted by Tedious initial venture in his attempted comeback This aging nineyearold Teddy stallion stallionraced raced with a price of 2500 on his head and among those he defeated in inThursdays Thursdays mile and a sixteenth was another whilom stakes performer Rough RoughPass Pass Tedious has several crops of foals of racing age To say the handsome handsomechestnut chestnut ran cheerfully would be expressing it mildly He looked like Dagwood late for the bus Tedious hung out 145 time twofifths swifter than Askmenow exhibited in the Pimiico Oaks if that means anything anythingAnother Another sire who has successfully returned to the racing wars at Pimiico is Red Chip an obscure son of Rip Rap who has a crop of foals at Ray Brysons Elray Farm and who vanquished an indifferent field earlier in the week
