Arcaro Wont Switch Mounts Even If Offered Opportunity, Daily Racing Form, 1949-05-02

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Arcaro Wont Switch Mounts Even If Offered Opportunity JAMAICA, L. I., N. Y., April 30.— Fred W. Hoopers Ocean Drive took to the air again this morning, boarding an Eastern Airlines plane at LaGuardia Field at 11:30 and taking off for Churchill Downs, where he will run in the Derby Trial on Tuesday. If the son of Coldstream performs as well in that mile test as he did in yesterdays St. James Handicap at Jamaica, he will accompany Olympia in the Derby on Saturday. Basil James, who rode Ocean Drive yesterday, will again ride the colt in Kentucky. Eddie Arcaro, though by no means positive that Olympia will go a mile and a quarter, said that he would not switch mounts, even ;f offered the chance by Hooper or trainer Ivan Parke. Arcaro recalled that in 1942 trainer John Gaver had urged him to switch from Greentree Stables Devil Diver to Shut Out after that colt had outworked his stablemate by two seconds in a mile trial a couple of days before the Derby. "Gaver knew that Shut Out was coming up to the race better than Devil Diver, but both colts had beaten each other the year before and I hoped that last work had put Devil Diver on edge. Besides, I was afraid that Shut Out might take it into his head to sulk, as he did some times After all, I felt bad when Shut Out beat me, but if it had been the other way and Devil Diver had won after I switched, Id have wanted to hang myself. Its the same this year." Even after Olympia won the Flamingo, while Ocean Drive was up the track, Hooper and Parke still thought that Ocean Drive was intrinsically the better colt, but when Ocean Drive was badly beaten in the Farrell Handicap at Bowie, while Olympia went on to win both divisions of the Experimental and Wood they were forced to change their minds. However, since the Coldstream colt has responded to treat-~ ment for a sinus congestion and acts like his old self again, the stable appears at least doubly armed for the Derby.


Persistent Link: https://drf.uky.edu/catalog/1940s/drf1949050201/drf1949050201_2_2
Local Identifier: drf1949050201_2_2
Library of Congress Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/unk82075800