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I gSgandgk IMIMm* jn ™"i" JUDGED STANP| ly Charles Hatron Experts Try to Roll Hoop and Beat Jeep Withers Enhances Derbys Significance Another Chance for Pavot in Preakness More at Claiborne Like Clever Beaugay? LOUISVILLE. Ky.. June 8. Derbytown Talk: If anybody cares at all. we think Matt Winn may pin a rose on Jeep shortly after the "wishing hour" of 5:00 here at the Downs tomorrow. Everyone is agreed, however, that I it it is is a a wide-open wide-open Derby. Derby. Surveying Surveying the the pan- it it is is a a wide-open wide-open Derby. Derby. Surveying Surveying the the pan- panorama of confused and confusing form, Hoop Jr. and Alexis appear contenders. . . . The possibility of mud is not so distressing to Ruff as some of his contemporaries. He | "does not care" if it is run through a plowed field. I Enfilade is less impartial, he said, having bogged down in the Fashion, but she may never beat Beaugay.*. . . Jack Healey, son of the late "Marse Tom," describes Alexis thus: "". . . nice little colt, all heart." The New Yorker saddled some pretty fair horses in in his his day. day. including including Equipoise Equipoise and and Top Top * * ; ™"i" in in his his day. day. including including Equipoise Equipoise and and Top Top * * ; Flight. Major Lunger will be here to see Alexis that is an old : duPont family name, by the way* in his "Run for the Roses." . . . Colonel Whitney is coming over from Lexington, where he ] is inspecting the bloodstock at his Paris Pike farm, to witness the Derby. He returns to Washington. D. C. Recce, of whom he is especially fond, may have something pertinent to say of the Coaching Club American Oaks. . . . For a man with a colt 1 who habitually goes choppy at the slow paces and detrainedit is I said, with a touch of colic and a rapped ankle. Ivan Parke has « acquitted himself commendably with Hoop Jr. . . . Slim Edwards ] V-mails Whitey Danahauer a long-range tip from Germany on Pot o Luck. . . . Darby Dieppe is a supplementary candidate for , the Preakness, next of the baubles in the "Triple Crown." As a j fair example of the disconcerting Derby form, or lack of it, Misweet could beat him last year. . . . Ben Jones thinks Hoop Jr. | "the one to beat" in the Derby, and has ever since timing him at Hialcah last winter. . . . H. C. Hatch, a thirty-second-degree sport with a great many rooters here, as well as in the Dominion, j arrived for the history-making mile and a quarter run. ; ] The Derby today has all sorts of possibilities, including: j one that it will reveal that the colt is destined to prove j 1945*s three-year-old champion. At any rate, it lost no i significance as a result of the Withers, in which Pavot was ruled divested of his aura of invincibility. No race can safely be called a "championship affair," but the colorful Downs spectacle contributes a generous share of the sea- ] sons ratings and does not suffer by comparison with any other classic in this respect. Annually it attracts a repre- j sentative field. In late years it produced bona fide cham- j pions in Count Fleet, Whirlaway. War Admiral. Omaha, j Cavalcade. Twenty Grand, Gallant Fox and Reigh Count. Some of the smart set along the local horse rialto are s taking an upstage attitude toward this seasons crop of ] three-year-olds, airily dismissing them as an inferior group, » but this strikes us as pretty snap judgment. Twilight Tear , wa just another rather promising filly a year ago, and By Jimminy a colt who failed to train satisfactorily for the j Derby. So. one never can be sure about horses. Even the ] Free for Alls and Pavots. it would seem. And the colt who j stands proudly within the floral horseshoe here tomorrow y afternoon, dripping sweat and roses, is, after all. a Derby , winner. That is something! The race itself generates , widespread public interest in the turf sport, which may be j m banal observation, nevertheless seems worth repeating, remembering the anvil chorus of a few weeks back. j The Withers result was a shocking upset. Performers with perfect records such as Pavot and Free for All enjoyed are good j "box-office." That is an important commodity. If anyone doubts . this he has only to reflect on the languid interest in baseball and ] boxing after selective service claimed their star entertainers. It may prove, as so many suspect, that Pavot. who has speed a la mode, is no stayer. Walter Jeffords, nevertheless, intends starting him in the Preakness. Those who backed Pavot are scarcely in the mood to philosophize, but we are reminded that everything is relative and, were Pavot a more obscure colt, his Withers would have been considered a genuinely creditable first out for a Preak- 1 ness candidate. 1 1 The performances of Hoop Jr. and Jeep in the Wood seemed somehow better after Polynesian beat Pavot and 1 Gallorette won the Acorn. Polynesian gave futile pursuit 4 to Fred Hoopers shifty bay in the Jamaica stake. Jeep dusted off the filly in his end of that affair. Indeed, 1 trainer Ruff adjured jockey Kirkland to keep a weather eye on Gallorette, anticipating that she would prove his i stoutest rival. We fail to find Polynesian among the Belmont Stakes candidates, by the way, and Gallorette is an 1 absentee from the Coaching Club Oaks. Her next appear- 1 ance may come with the decision of the Pimlico Oaks, on Preakness Day. 1 New Yorkers, duly impressed by Maine Chance Farms royally 1 bred filly Beaugay, now are eagerly looking forward to seeing her In action against the colts in the National Stallion. There is 1 ample precedent for racing fillies in this Widener Chute test, won by Mrs. Ames as recently as in 1943. Beaugays form is a I source of pleasure to Arthur Boyd Hancock, for he has a half-sister to her in his Keeneland consignment this summer. As we have previously noted, she is by Blue Larkspur, thus is an own sister to the ill-fated Sky Larking. Beaugay is Little Risks sister. The master of Claiborne has sold approximately 00,000 worth of Risks foals. Rather ironically, Pericles, the most expensive, at 6,000, is the only one who has not as yet distinguished him- J self under colors. J
