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Nelson Dunstan REFLECTIONS By Nelson Dunstan New Triple Crown Winner Today ArlingtonWashingtons Problem Belmont Is Stake Breeders Seek Many Fixtures for Older Horses NEW YORK N Y June 4 Three members of The Jockey Club insist their yearlings will be sold in the East Fred B Koontz Oklahoma breeder is a Belmont visitor A committee of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations will frame plans to recommend to member tracks on breeders awards Harry Straus is not too optimistic over the Florida racing situation next winter When E R Bradley was ribbing the late James Butler about about having a trainer so small as Andy Schuttinger the shrewd Irishman retorted I want a trainer I know I can lick Hugh Fontaine was the first to congratulate Ben Jones when MarKell defeated Yar ¬ row Maid in the Top Flight Whirlaway will not be a starter in the Queens County Handicap for which he was assigned top weight of 132 A taxicab driver writes us he would like to buy the speedometer of the Belmont publicity boys who say the walk from Queens Village to the Elmont course is only seven furlongs Watch a trio of Chicago stakes jump to 50000 in added money MarKell was a magnificent specimen as she cooled out after winning the Top Flight Even though Del Mar and Tanforan are now in service Californians insist Hollywood will stage a meeting in the fall Virginia breeders will hold a meeting tomor ¬ row morning in Warrenton Va to discuss an eastern sale of yearlings yearlingsCount Count Fleet should join Sir Barton Gallant Fox Omaha War Admiral and Whirlaway as the sixth to win the Triple Crown of the Kentucky Derby Preakness and Belmont Should he lose tomorrow Belmont fans are due to see the biggest upset in the history of the worlds turf Upsets defeat of Man o War and Jim Dandys nevertobeforgotten score over Gallant Fox would be mild in com ¬ parison if an opponent were to lead the Hertz champion to the wire Should Count Fleet win lie will become the second horse in history to win the Triple Crown plus the Withers He still has an opportunity to accomplish a feat no threeyearold has performed and that is to go on to Chicago to win the Classic and the American Derby Should he stay sound throughout the season The Fleet also has a splendid chance of topping Gallant Foxs record of earning 308275 the highest sum ever earned by a horse anywhere in the world for one season Gallant Fox raced 10 times in 1930 but although he was defeated in the Travers he still amassed enough to establish a record that has not been approached in 13 years In his threeyearold career Whirlaway earned 272386 starting in 20 races It seems a foregone con ¬ clusion Count Fleet will pass that seasonal mark providing of course as we stated above that nothing unforeseen happens to curtail his career The Belmont is the oldest of the Triple Crown events having been inaugurated in 867 Down through the years it has also been the race that breeders have appraised when seeking stud material It is a testimonial to the greatness of the famous American line of Fair Play for Australian founder of that line had no less than three of his own sons on the winning roster Man o War was the winner in 1920 and three of his sons namely American Flag Crusader and War Admiral have since been winners War Admirals son Gig made his debut at Belmont Park on Thursday and he is the first to start off the get of Big Reds famous son whose match race with Seabiscuit will forever live in the minds of modernday racegoers While the Fair Play clan has been allpowerful from the days of Joe Daniels winner in 1872 to War Admiral in 1937 the future of the male line of Man o War now rests squarely on the stud ability of War Admiral and other latterday sons of Big Red The male ancestry of Count Fleet does not enter into the Belmont roster and this is his oppor ¬ tunity to register Reigh Count as a sire of a winner of that allimportant three yearold event eventSome Some of Americas leading stables will be heading for the combined ArlingtonWashington meetings within the next two weeks In fact so many horsemen with all classes of horses have applied for stall space that the managements find themselves in a most embarrassing position as they have five or six applications for every stall After a week of considering the problem they decided to make a straightforward appeal to the horsemen to cooperate with them and have announced that the grade of horses owned by the applicant and the date of application for stalls will determine who will be given preference for the space With 1500 as the purse minimum and a liberal number of 1800 to 2500 overnight purses it was only natural that horsemen would flock there and especially in this year of curtailed racing They simply cannot give what they do not have and certainly horsemen will understand when they say they will not accept registration of a horse which in its last six starts for a claiming price of 1250 or less did not finish first second or third in at least one of these races Chicago racing has become as attractive as any that is staged in this country and the answer to it is that the ArlingtonWashington officials have been liberal enough in purse distribution to permit stables to operate there profitably This has been one of the most remarkable seasons for older horses within the recollection of this writer But as in years gone by comebacks have not been as plentiful as we first supposed Foxbrough Fenelon and War Relic were given pre ¬ liminary training only to have it develop they could not stand the work As a result they have been retired permanently Shut Out is back on the shelf and probably will be until the fall Alsab has been slow to get under way and Whirlaway will embark on his 1943 campaign tomorrow Yet the competition among the older horses to date has been splendid The fields have been well filled and the more heavily weighted contestants have had hard picking against their more lightly weighted rivals Still the big events are to come After tomorrows running of the Belmont Stakes threeyearolds will pass from the picture temporarily but the older horses due to quantity will be the bulwark of upholding racings quality By July they will be racing for events that boast anywhere from 15000 to 50000 in added money and luckily for the first year in many there will be enough of them to go around The old feud between Whirlaway and Alsab still remains the number one argument of the current racing season
