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" — -i ; __ REFLECTIONS By Nelson Dunstan — ■ Experimental Mid-Week Feature Pimlico, Gansett Open Wednesday Knight Buys More Yearlings Koontz Retires Blue Pair to Stud NEW YORK, N. Y.. April 8. Although the Coast Guard is selling thousands of horses, the Remount has no intention of going out of business. . . . Both Nelson Dunstan the horse I and Darby Dunstan another horse will race in the Mid-West. . . . Louis B. Mayer will arrive in New York Monday. . . . There will be a public hearing of the Merritt case on April 18, 19 or 20. . . . Will the gentleman who sent me a copy of the letter he forwarded to The Jockey Club and Maryland Jockey Club please send me his name? It will be held in strict confidence. ... At their annual meeting, the National Association of Racing Commissioners will be asked to bar all jockey agents. . . . April 15 is the deadline for supplementary entries to the Preakness and it would not surprise me if quite a few were named, even though it cost ,500 per head, . . . The boys on this paper wish Norman Charlton all the luck in the world. After 20 years of newspaper work, Norman becomes a steward at Narra-gansett Park. . . . Well be going to Pimlico, then Narragansett and then Churchill Downs, with the permission of the ODT. . . . Bobby Permane rode 13 out of 24 possible winners on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, a feat few jockeys have accomplished. . . . Tommy Howell of The Barring-ton Stable is convalescing at Doctors Hospital. Wednesdays feature at Jamaica will be the Experimental Free Handicap, second of the many three-year-old events that are designed as Kentucky Derby preps. Just how nun. of Jack Campbells high weights on the Experimental list will answer the bugle is a question, for not manv trainers have been able to "leg up" their charges to their full satisfaction. The Derby is even more controversial than it was last fall. Challenge Me, winner of the Arkansas Derby, gained many followers by his performance. But the Wood Memorial, Chesapeake, Blue Grass and Derby Trial still holds much of the answer. Both Pimlico and Narragansett open on Wednesday and officials at both points look for highly successful meetings. The Pimlico meeting will run until Saturday. May 13, and presents a powerful stakes program throughout the meeting. The opening event on Wednesday will be the ,500 Rowe Memorial Handicap. The 5,000 added Chesapeake Stakes will be run on Saturday, April 29, thus giving Kentucky Derby candidates but a week to arrive in Louisville for the May 6 classic. On the day of the Derby, Pimlico will offet the 0,000 Dixie Handicap, one of the oldest stake events run in the United States. The 0,000 Preakness will bring the Maryland meeting to a close on Saturday, May 13. Just two of the famous people to be seen at the Jamaica opening were Henry H. Knight and Fred B. Koontz, prominent Kentucky breeders. Knight is the man who bought Grand Slam for 5,000 and. more recently, completed one of the biggest purchases in thoroughbred breeding history when he bought all of the stock of Valdina Farm of the late Emerson F. Woodward. Last week, Knight completed another deal when he bought nine yearling colts and fillies from William B. Millet of the Greenwich Stud. There are four colts by Reaping Reward, one by Rhodes Scholar, one by Heliopo-lis and two fillies by Reaping Reward and one by Ariel. Knight, while in New York, is working on another deal which will be of interest and surprise to the industry. Knight will be very prominent in the sales of 1944. Of the Valdina stock he ; purchased he still holds four stallions, 45 mares and 27 yearlings. All of these purchases are still at Valdina Farm in Texas, 1 but the yearlings will be shipped to Spindle Top Farm in Kentucky about June 1 and the mares also will be sent to the Blue Grass when the breeding season is over. With the yearlings that he is raising at his . own Almahurst Farm in Kentucky, Knight j will be one of the biggest consignors to the sales that will be held in August. Fred B. Koontz, the Kentucky -Arizona-Oklahoma breeder, is in from Tulsa to take care of business matters in connection with the oil in -dustry, but is full of horse talk, He I has retired Blue Pair, the son of I Pairbypair, to his Paulfred Farms at Tulsa. A tireless worker in the interests of oil production for our country, Koontz still finds time to care for his vast thoroughbred interests.
