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I JUDGES STAND 1 : By Charles Hatton Belmont Blood May Aid Phalanx in Belmont Stoner Creek Farm Horses Have Fire Drills Man o War Closes Guest Book in Summer Saggy Combines Stylish U. S., British Lines LEXINGTON, Ky., May 30. A good many of the local breeders have flown east to see the Belmont, which often is won by a colt that turns out to be quite a good sire. "Among those present" will be Warren Wright, who is running the highly fancied Faultless, and Paul Ebelhardt tells us that he has a notion "Faultless will be given a chance at Calumet when he has finished racing." Of course, you know that C. V. Whitney paid Abe Hewitt 0,000 for a half share in Phalanx because he felt that this unimaginative colt might be a suitable mate for those mettlesome Mahmoud fillies. The Belmont is over the classic mile and a half route, and it looks well in an untried sires racing record. We have two down here now who enjoy this prestige and whose first yearlings go to market this summer. It was only a few Belmonts ago that Shut Out had his backers on the nervous edge of their chairs while he beat ATsab, and that Count Fleet made an ordinary field look awfully bad at odds of 1 to 20. One of the things about the Belmonts history which seems to rhyme is the recurrence of winners from the male line of Spendthrift, Hastings and Fair Play: When the park was built in 1903 everything was constructed on a grandiose scale, including the mile and a half course, and August Belmont bred horses to fit it. One of the horses he bred was Fair Plays half brother, Friar Rock, who won the Belmont in 1916 and is Phalanx grandsire. It will be interesting to note if this all makes the slightest difference to Faultless. The education of a thoroughbred begins on the farm, if he is lucky enough to get himself foaled at one which is well regulated. For instance, Calumet has some of the explosive Blenheim II. blood, but it doesnt have many "bad shippers and perhaps this is because the yearlings are taken on occasional van rides about the farm to accustom them to it. The carelessness about fires is really appalling around some establishments, but these do not include Stoner Creek Farm. Not long ago John Hertz showed us a set of closed blinkers that are slipped over the horses heads to teach them to be led about blindfolded in fire drills. He .reasons that a horse, or possibly several of them, might be lost in a stable fire while grooms are looking for a blindfold, and these blinkers arc convenient at all times. There is an unusual number of tourists passing through the Blue Grass this year, and most of them head straightway to the stud barn .at Faraway Farm to admire Man o War. The old trouper now is 30 and it has been decided not to show him during the heat of summer after June 15. Pat ONeill is reluctant to disappoint sightseers, but the constant turning about in his stall is rather wearing on Man o War in this weather. Horse lovers will agree that he deserves to rest undisturbed for a while after 26 years, during which he has entertained more than 1,500,000 visitors. To be perfectly candid about it, he now is only a shadow of his old self, even though he is a healthy horse for one of his years. One can gain only the vaguest ideas of how he really appeared when in his prime. He then was a horse of exceptional presence and strength, and it was a pleasure to watch him romp about his paddock. He now is, indeed, "The Old Man," asRiddle fondly calls him. There are perhaps better two-year-olds than is Saggy, but he will do until one comes along. Janon Fisher, Jr., showed us his sire, Swing and Sway, not long ago at The Caves in Maryland, and this horse may now attract more and somewhat better mares. Nobody ever libeled Swing and Sway as a good race horse, but he was rather a. clever sprinter, and he is out of the stakes mare, Nadana. Saggy has in common with Assault and Stymie that he is a prominent grandson of Equipoise from a more or less unexpected source. He is rather longer and lighter of barrel than most of the descendants of Equipoise, but he seems to have all the nerve a horse needs to train on. His dams pedigree would please the most avid Anglophile, we should think. She is an Hyperion mare for whom Mildred Wool-wine paid Jock Whitney about 8,000 last fall. Were afraid her feet arent much better than those, of Hycilla and some other Hyperions, and, of course, Equipoises were shelly, for that matter. Saggys have not stung Jtiim too much, if, indeed, they trouble him at all. By the way, both of Mahmouds two-year-old winners to the writing, the filly Mackinaw and the colt Starting Time, are out of Equipoise mares. Olin Gentry tells us that six of Darby Dan Farms 40 mares already are the dams of stakes winners. These are Bit o Love, Bosnia, La Croma, Roselake, Torietta and Sun Lilly. Two others. Darby Dunedin and Darby Delilah, won stakes or high-class handicaps. Darby DAbbie, Darby Damozel and Whiskachance all are out of stakes winners, and Bright Blue, Ouphe and Friendly are out of sisters to stakes winners. Gentry always has been rather partial to Blue Larkspur mares, and he points with pardonable pride to the fact that Darby Dan has two broodmares by this sire, as well as a two-year-old filly, a yearling filly and a filly foal by him. Possibly Bit o Love is Galbreaths best mare of proven ability. She is the dam of the remarkable Boysy, you know. As the story goes, the late Colonel Bradley sold Boysy for 00 as a ciipple, but a long vacation in Texas enabled him to prove a far more capable horse than anyone might have imagined.
