view raw text
JUDGES STAND *y CHARLES HATT0N STANTON, Del., June 11.— Bryan Field is well pleased with public response to the first third of Delaware Parks sporty summer turf season, and there seems a possibility that attendance and "tote" figures will be creditably near those of 1948 at thg end of the meet on the Fourth of July. Any club which approximates Any approximates its 48 business this year may feel that its meeting has been remarkably successful. The best sport at the ver-. dant Stanton course is still to come. There are four stakes to be carded during the week directly ahead. These are Tuesdays 0,000 Tom Roby Chase, Wednesdays 0,000 Christiana,, Fridays ,000 National Maiden Hurdle and Saturdays 5,000 New Castle Handicap. Later on there are such traditional events as the 0,000 Dover Stakes, the 5,000 Sussex Handicap, the 0,000 Indian River Steeplechase, the 0,000 Leonard Richards Stakes and the 0,000 Delaware Oaks. We should" think Dela-wareans will see some of this years most important sport on this side of the Atlantic in various of these stakes. Under the Delaware law a great deal of whatever a club may make must be plowed back into the business "for the maintenance and development of purses, stakes and rewards, and for the maintenance and improvement of the tracks and buildings of the licensee." Since William duPont thought up the law, that is the way the club would like it. The stands were enlarged for the current meeting and we expect a rearrangement of the "tote" facilities will be the next step, if it seems warranted. The course now is one of the pleasantest places we know to go riding. AAA Monmouth Park will have open house this weekend and the guests will find that it has been improved here and there for the meet which opens June 17 and inns 47 days through August 10. The plant has been painted, roads about the stables black topped, a county * highway widened, parking areas increased and the meazzanine balcony placed under roof. Monmouth play was a trifle off last summer, when it rained much of the final week, but the club has increased its purse and stakes distribution. The overnight events are up about Four Stakes on Weeks Agenda at Delaware Monmouth Park Improved for Coming Meet Purse, Stake Distribution Is Increased Successful Bug1 Began Riding on Dare 00 a day, and there is a new 0,000 stake called the Regret Handicap, which is for fillies-and-mares at six furlongs and is a sort of prelim for the Monmouth Oaks and Molly Pitcher. Perhaps you know that the only filly to win the Kentucky Derby was foaled -at Brookdale in New Jersey, so that the choice of a name for this stake is rather apt. Monmouth will conflict with Delaware Park during the first part of its meeting, and Saratoga-at-Saratoga the last 10 days. It is estimated that more than 50 per cent of Monmouths play comes from New York. There is an unusual demand for stalls both at Monmouth and Delaware, and some of the New Jersey strings which were given temporary stalls at Delaware will move to Monmouth this week-end, which will enable the local club to accommodate the steeplechasers that are coming here for its hedge events. AAA John Turner, Jr.who assists racing secretary "Gil" Haus here at Delaware, is the race secretary at Monmouth and he tells us that it is planned to card two two-year-old races each day at the Jersey track. One imagines this will please horsemen and breeders. Turner takes the view that "those who buy yearlings to develop, or breed horses to race in their own colors, are entitled to a chance to "get out" on them. Otherwise they might as well claim ready made horses." In this connection we note that Jimmy Kilroes first Arlington book has made its appearance, and that it also offers two baby races daily, some of them for ,000 purses, which is 00 more than the minimum. Of course an epidemic of coughing might make it necessary to rewrite the script in spots, but then the clubs are not remiss about giving them an opportunity. Concerning what is called "the over-racing of two-year-olds" we think that knowledgeable horsemen are aware of it when a horse of any age has enough. Among other stakes to be run at Monmouth this summer is the 0,000 N. J. Futurity, for two-year-olds foaled in the state. Nobody we know pretends that homebred races improve the breed, but such clever colts as Ferd and Attention Mark are eligible for the Futurity this year. AAA Delaware Park apprentices include one who began riding on a dare. This is Michael Grosso, who rode his first winner, Royal Foot, at Garden State recently, and last week won with the outsider Falsely. Grosso is 21, rides for Jaywood Elliott, and is a product of Philadelphia. As the story goes he was attending Bok School there when his father became ill and he and his two brothers had to leave their studies to seek employment. Grossos first job was with a neighborhood butcher to whom he was apprenticed, and the first day he amputated the little finger of his left hand. A career as a butcher understandably ceased to appeal to him. Grosso liked football but weighs only 105 and was too light even to carry water for his chums on the Jackson Wildcats team. But he wasnt too light to ride, saved his change, and hired the toughest mounts at the Fairmount Park Riding School, because nobody else much cared to hire them and he was quoted a reduced rate. His friends liked to banter him about his activities on the bridle paths, and suggested very archly that he was wasting his talent and why didnt he get a job riding at Garden State. So he did! AAA Turf ana: Ponder, an absentee from the" Dwyer, will point for Middlewest stakes. . . . The Dwyer may have an International element, with the Kings Plate winner Epic and Mi Preferido, "the Citation of Cuba," among the 33 nominees. . . . Owners of the winners of Monmouth stakes will be awarded trophies. . . . Arlingtons Primer, Modesty, Stars and Stripes and Dick Welles close on June 18. . . . The Monday p. m. bouts at Delaware Park are fun. Jockey Lee Haskell will box Johnny Breen, billed as "Gorgeous" Haskell, wearing nylons, while his handlers carry an atomizer. . . . Ogden Phipps nimble Striking, sister to Busher and Mr. Busher, is a prospect for the Astoria.
