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JUDGES STAND I : By Charles Hatton Equifox Comes Back for Equipoise Mile Burton Has New System of Grading Horses Empire Asks 0,000 Question of Assault Florida Ctte. Studies Mutuel Taxation The Equipoise Mile on Wednesday is next of the long and opulent list of features to be run here at fashionable Arlington Park. It is this summer enriched with 0,000 and it is to be presented over the same course on which Equipoise ran his record mile in 1:34 under 128 pounds in the otherwise unimportant Delavan Handicap of 1932. Sonny Workman has often told us he seriously believes "Equipoise might have run in 34 that day, if he had to." Of course Armed is the topweight, under 132 pounds, and the recent Clang winner, Fighting Step, is not far behind him with 126. So much for the "logical contention." A thing which lends the race unusual interest is the proposed appearance of Howard Wells gallant old Equifox. Now a 9-year-old, he is the only stakes horse by Equipoise still active. He has come out of retirement, interrupting a stud career, in an effort to win three runnings of this event, and so retire the Challenge Cup. This trophy incidentally looks a bit like the Statue of Liberty, superimposed on the Empire State Building, as if calculated to resist all physical efforts to ":arry it off." It was "Babe" Wells admiration for the turfs Chocolate Soldier which led him to breed Equifox, who has won him more than 00,000. In pretty much the same way Bob Kleberg has this season won the first 00,000 "Triple Crown" with Assault. Some years ago, when the Texan set out to breed horses, his fondness for Equipoise prompted him to buy a service to the stallion, and in the course of the transaction he asked Maj. Louie Beard if he had any suggestions as to the mare. Beard sold him one, C. V. Whitneys Incandescent, and the result of this meeting was Assaults dam, Igual. There is other evidence that sentiment for a horse is a profitable thing, when the horse is Equipoise. It used to be said that Woollcott made more money out of the Snyder-Grey case than ever the lawyers did, and turf scribes have probably made more out of Equipoise than the late Tom Healey did. Whether Equifox can bring off this triple in the famous "Mile" we cant guess, but he is said to have trained well for it at Keene-land this summer, going through his paces with a gallery of his foals watching through the fence as "Pop" turned it on. Tracks program fewer graded races than they did a couple of years back, and the fewer they program the better horsemen and horse-players in general like it. But Fred Burton has devised a new method of grading horses, and it is the most satisfactory we know about. Class C is "for non-winners of ,850 three times or ,250 once in 1946, or ,500 in 1944-45." Class E is "for non-winners of ,275 three times or ,850 once in 1946, or ,500 in 1945, or ,000 any time." This may all be too technical for you, unless you are one of those people who can read time-tables and like geometry, but no matter. What it amounts to is simply that "the horses more or less grade themselves," as Burton puts it. Of course that is more satisfactory than having a handicapper, or a board of them, grade the horses in accordance with their opinions, sound as they sometimes are. Burton is the racing secretary-handicapper here, as well as at Washington Park, Laurel and Keeneland, and writes the book at Charles Town. New Yorkers will see a series of nine features during the Empire City meeting, which begins today with a renewal of the 0,000 Fleetwing Handicap, at six furlongs. "The Race of the Week" in the Gotham area is next Saturdays 0,000 Empire City, for three-year-olds. Having given away a little weight and winning The Dwyer, Assault must carry 130 and give away a little more, if he is a starter. It is his richest opportunity in a three-year-old stake in New York this side of the Belmont fall meet. A softer touch for him comes a bit later, on July 13, in Monmouths revival of the 5,000 Choice Stakes, wherein he would carry 126. And it will be surprising if he does not come West for the 0,000 Classic, even if he is in a high tax" bracket. The Empire club has been building up its program, to meet competition elsewhere in the East and Middle West for the horses. In addition to giving the Empire City its present monetary importance, it has transformed the Demoiselle and East View into futurities, with 5,000 added to each. The association has wanted to build a new course, but has encountered zoning and building difficulties at every turn. Turfiana: Photos and architectural details of the Hialeah clubhouse have been- supplied 20th Century-Fox for construction of a "set" for a feature soon to go into production. . . . Jeannie Pie qualified for next week-ends Pollyanna when she just lasted to beat another candidate in Star Pilots half-sister, Gracie Vee. . . . Floridas governor has appointed a committee to make a detailed study of taxation, and its recommendations will probably include one for the reduction of the states 8 per cent take on mutuels. . . . "He has one of the most intelligent heads I have seen on a horse," Mayor Jimmy Jones says of Armed; "and he is just as smart as he looks." . . . Fred Burton wishes all tracks would adopt the same division of the purses. It would simplify matters in the racing secretaries offices. . . . Mighty Story did not appear to be very supple in chasing the whimsical Spy Song in the Colin Purse. . . . National Geographic is doing a feature on Hialeahs pink flamingos. . . . The 5,000 Haggin Stakes, for two-year-olds foaled in California, is the week-ends feature out Hollywood way and it seems certain to draw Hemet Squaw. . . . Brandywine has a lead pony that drinks coca-cola. . . . Many observers were more surprised when Pet Pilot ran in the Hyde Park than when he was beaten.
