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j U D G E S S T A N D CHARLES HATTON LOUISVILLE Ky May 3 Per ¬ haps there have been more impressive Derby winners but we do not recall one in 80 years of watching the race Citation actually outbroke Coaltown then spotted him seven lengths It seemed impossible any colt could thus defy the lightning but Citation caught him with a tremendous run around the last turn and won pricking his ears Coaltowns admirers have pointed out he was not hit with the whip that is the sourest grape since Aesop invented his fable Coaltown is a free runner of the Count Fleet variety and Jie had just broken a mile and a furlong track mark so Citation was not picking on any mere sprinter Owner Wright had said I hope the best horse wins and this observer is convinced he did Chatting of classic colts Ben Jones opines that a really worthwhile prospect ought to have at least one extremely fast furlong in his repertoire Citation can uncork one most any time in his races he added In the Derby the son of Bull Lea came from fromf f behind In the Derby Trial he had engaged the rapid Galedo in a speed duel from the gate killing him off with six furlongs in track record time Such versatility is rarely wrapped up in the same horse hide and this seems to us the remarkable thing about the 1948 Derby winner To all the present signs and portents the 100000 Preak ¬ ness next of the Triple Crown events will have a very small field A A A AOne One often hears it said that horses are faster than they were a generation ago and fully as often that the tracks rather than the horses are faster Track superin tendent Tom Young of Churchill Downs thinks it is a little of both Young has been in charge of the local strip for 36 years which may be a record of some sort I only resurfaced it once he says and that convinced Ben Jones on Classic Colts Repertoire Tom Youngs Experience as Track Super Flaming Bush Considered Good Prospect Mount Marcy Rewards Trainers Patience Patienceme me that nothing should be done to disturb the bottom of a race track However we do add a new top dressing each fall For instance last year we placed about 6000 yards of equal parts of humus and loam on the track This live soil made a twoinch dressing extending out from the inner rail about 70 feet all around the course At this juncture Youngs aide de camp Cliff Burke observed that Nobody resurfaces a track any more It is the best known method of getting into difficulties I re member one year Arlington was resurfaced and opening day the fast mare Valenciennes won a six furlongs race in 117 117A A A A Mrs John Payson Adams may have a first rate pros ¬ pect in the twoyearold colt Flaming Bush He is a growthy colt of the sort who gives the impression he will develop into a Derby size threeyearold although he toes out a bit and few of Blue Larkspurs male progeny have stayed sound Flaming Bush is out of Harrie Scotts good producer Flaming Sword a blind Man o War mare who also foaled Blue Swords when bred to Blue Larkspur We think that the astute Tom Cromwell talent scouted Flaming Bush for Mrs Adams who bought him for 25000 at the Keeneland Sales last August He was the costliest of six yearlings by the dead Blue Larkspur who were sold at auction last season The last crop of Blue Larkspurs now are hitting the ground to borrow an ex ¬ pression from Del Holeman By the way Mrs Adams white black cuffs on sleeves are more familiar as the Vanderbilt colors in France than they are here and her trainer E HNJ Shaw is quite as familiar in Australia as he is in the U S A A A A AMount Mount Marcy has rewarded trainer Sylvester Veitchs patience this spring This son of Mahmoud and Maud Muller was considered by his developer to be quite the best of the colt foals of 1945 at C V Whitney Farm but he was ailing and wasted rather badly as a yearling and he could only be raced once at two last season He has not seemed a colt who holds his flesh very well but he has improved materially from two to three Mount Marcy is a wellrbred horse for Maud Muller was one of the bril ¬ liant fillies of her year when the late H P Whitney also raced Mother Goose and Swinging the latter the dam oE Equipoise Indeed they were first Second and third in the 1924 Rosedale in which Maud Muller was the winner Retired to the stud Maud Muller produced Plucky Maud and Chic Maud among other good ones Chic Maud is the dam of Maud Lea Maud Muller died last year at Whitney Farm full of years and honors Incidentally Veitch was manager of the farm up to 1946 so that he actually bred and reared Mount Marcy whom he now is training trainingA A A A ATurfiana Turfiana More than 40 bushels of mint went into juleps here last weekend A local farmer provides providesthese these fixins and indeed it is his principal crop The Downs club has ignored the Maryland Jocket Club director who had the poor taste to sponsor that news ¬ paper advertisement in which the Derby is described as a carnival The Preakness is a good race that is being cheapened by this sort of thing Many of the horse ¬ men now at Louisville plan to race at Chicago where LincolnatWashington follows the local meet Young Peter Gifford has in common with the accomplished Johnny Longden that he is a native of The Tight Little Isle
