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JUDGES STAND by charles hatton LOUISVILLE, Ky., May 6.— The spirited Derby finish promises "a good show" in the Preakness this week-end. There seem to be all sorts of interesting possibilities in the three-year-old events this season, including a slim one that it will turn out to be a "filly year." Chatting with C. V. Whitney just before the Derby, he reflected that "This is one time when we may say that there is a better one in the barn, meaning First Flight, of course." She certainly could outrun Jet Pilot and the other colts at two. Perhaps the 0,000 Coaching Club, which is at a mile and three furlongs, will afford some ides of whether she is going on this season. Jockey Eddie Arcaro tells us that he fancies she may, as one can "rate her with a string." It would have been unwise to have tried to have her ready for an effort to emulate Regret in the Derby or Nellie Morse in the Preakness because of her knee injury. Racing alone can determine how well it has responded to treatment, but trainer Veitch is pleased with the way she is training. Carolyn A. and Cosmic Missile are other fillies of genuine class who can beat more colts than beat them. We expect that they will confine their activities to the Oaks this spring, but nobody need be too surprised if a filly emerges as a really serious rival for the colts. AAA An interesting experiment is going on at the Whitney Farm out here on the old Paris Pike. C. V. Whitney is given to thinking and when he inherited a fine band of mares and other breeders got better results from his sires, he set up a program of restoring the farms "horse poor" fields. Ivor Balding is carrying it out. Not long ago, A. S. Hewitt pointed out one of the fields to us and noted that "a conference of agronomists have made a national survey and it is their opinion that it is the best pasture in Whitney Says First Flight Best in Barn Improves Grazing at Farm in Blue Grass Contradiction New Sire at Virginia Stud Tennesseeans, Marylanders Root for Saggy the United States." It is a sort of equine salad bowl of blue grass, clover, 31 fescue and other nutritious foods that were grown in the scientific fashion Balding learned at Cornell. The two-year-olds Veitch and Ruff are training have more size and bone than earlier crops, and one St. Germans colt stood 16.1 last November. AAA Mrs. W. Plunket Stewart writes us from her Rolling Plains Farm, at The Plains in Virginia, that the young sire, Contradiction, has been added to the stud there. Milkman still is in service there, but he now is 20, and Bob Kleberg has loaned Mrs. Stewart the King Ranch horse for the rest of the season. Vets have advised against sending more than eight mares to Milkman. Mrs. Stewart is delighted with Contradiction, whom she describes as "really a beautiful horse, standing about 16.S. He certainly throws back to Sir Gallahad III., and he has very good legs." Until this year the Pimlico Futurity winner was bred to only a few mares, and the oldest of his get are two-year-olds. Herbert Woolf bred and raced Contradiction, and now has a filly and a colt by the son of Insco that he likes so much he wanted to buy back their sire, even though he has a great deal of the blood at his Woolford Farm. AAA Saggy is perhaps not 1947s best two-year-old, but he is an awfully quick colt and he keeps on winning. Jock Whitney is the breeder of this son of Swing and Sway and the Hyperion mare, Chantress. Janon Fisher, Jr., is standing Swing and Sway in Maryland. He sold Saggy privately to Stanley Sagner last year for ,700, we think. Chantress was among a draft of Greentree mares sold at Keeneland last fall, and the Tennessee breeder, Mildred Woolwine, got her for 8,000. We saw the mare at her place some weeks ago and she is a liver-colored chestnut with the rather large feet so many English horses seem to have. Fisher is a versatile horseman, by the way, breeding and developing flat horses and timber toppers, and serving as an MFH for several years. The difference in fox hunting in Maryland and Virginia is that many Free Staters ride to hounds in overalls, which would be considered most unsuitable in the Old Dominion, but we cant think it matters very much to the foxes. Just now Fisher is training a couple of Maryland Hunt Cup eligi-bles and primping a Swing and Sway filly for the Pimlico yearling show. AAA So much has been made of Bullet Proofs slight stature that it may interest you to learn he is just a bit taller than 14.3 at the wither. The notion here is that his small size is the big difference between him and the best three-year-old colts, for he has more heart and sense than most. Liz Whitney has hunted his sire, Stepin-fetchit, and was present when Shatterproof foaled Bullet Proof. You may remember that Stepinfetchit is by The Porter, who was himself an extremely small horse. The Chesapeake winners dam won several races at two and was placed in stakes at three, finishing second to Mars Shield in the Kentucky Oaks. Her half-sisters, Beatit and Entertainer, won stakes, and she is by St. Germans out of Triplex, by Fair Play out of Blue Grass. Few experienced horsemen care for particularly big horses, but racing conditions have changed a lot since the prehistoric turf era of Marske, who was 14.2 Ms, and Pacolet, who was 13.3 We believe that 15.3 is considered about right in the present day.
