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JUDGE S STAN D *y charles hatton DELAWARE PARK, Stanton, Del., June 14. — This pleasant countryside park is setting some new records for patronage, and it will offer a renewal of the important Delaware Oaks this week end. Indications are that two of the get of Count Fleet, Kiss Me Kate and the Midwests Astro will share the bulk of support, while two others of the progeny of John Hertz stallion, Counterpoint and Count Turf, are leading contenders for the Belmont Stakes the same afternoon. It will be quite a " good story if they can bring off this double, or if Astro becomes a winner and an Oaks winner simultaneously. She still is a maiden, you know. Don Ross sporty, nonprofit track enjoyed its best day in years last week end, when a crowd of 21,853 wagered ,465,918. It may approximate those figures this Saturday with the same good fortune in the weather, though the Belmont will attract muny Philadelphiansto Long Island. Remarkably, the play here Memorial Day was ,214,806, when there was a conflict with Garden State Park. The daily double was resumed here this summer, after having been abandoned in 1942, and the American Tote Company notes that something of a record was established by the-doubles ticket dispensers a week ago. Delaware has 15 of these gadgets and they issued 32,397 tickets. The best previous average per machine was 2,100. These machines are said to make purchasing doubles less wearing on the public, as the lines move faster, and there are fewer shutouts on big days. AAA Lou Smith .showed us about Rockingham Park the othei day, and he managed to effect some improvements in the Salem, N. H., course before the ban on such construction. For example, there are several new barns, so that the track how has facilities for stabling 1,300 horses,, and a splendid new track kitchen. The latter structure has knotty pine panelling throughput and. is more attrac- Doubles Machine Sets Mark at Delaware Old Rock Has New Features for 51 Meet Many Apply for Shares in Sire Jet Pilot Suffolk to Have Improved Transportation* tive than most restaurants. Smith also has purchased one of the new track screening inventions, and the_topsoil on the racing surface is entirely free of pebbles and other extraneous matter. The top dressing for the track is obtained from one or two small farms in the area, contains a mulch and-is live. "I am not concerned with fast times," Smith said, "but in having the horses stand racing and training." He will have a very important announcement to make before many days. A A Leslie Combs n. writes us that the highly promising young sire, Jet Pilot, will be syndicated shortly, and that there were 40 applicants for the 20 shares in the son of Blenheim n. and Black Wave. The Van Cliefs,"in-cidentally, may start the Kentucky Derby winners sister, Tides, in this Saturdays Delaware Oaks. Important as the sire is in a pedigree, Brownell and Leslie Combs know the influence of the distaff or family side, and "the Spendthrift consignment to Keeneland this summer will include representatives of the Myrtlewood family, which they have developed. Headed by a son of War Admiral and Myrtlewood. Perhaps not many present-day racegoers know it, but Brownell Combs also developed and raced Sweetheart, the ancestress of Bold, Red Shoes, Case Ace, Bounding Home and all that crowd. In fact, he purchased Frizeur, the dam of Myrtlewood, with a "part of the 5,000 F. Wallis Armstrong was reported to have paid him for Sweetheart. She was indeed a Sweetheart, a lovely chestnut with a blaze who could run like a little red fox, and beat many of the best horses of her time. Leslie Combs has kept some of the blood at Spendthrift. The mare Decolte is of this family, and she now has a two-year-old filly by Jet Pilot called Belle Jet, whom trainer Monte Parke likes. AAA John C. Pappas has enhanced Suffolk Downs appeal through his landscaping program this season, and he tells us that it will be continued after this meeting. Two thousand pink and white dogwood are to be set out. New England dates now are fairly established and they will bloom during future meets. There also is to be an increase in parking facilies for 52. Suffolk lots now can accommodate about 7,000 cars, but less conveniently than Pappas wishes. "I should think the new aerial highway, and the rapid transit surface cars will help tremendously in future seasons," he observed. "These projects are expected to be completed in time to serve patrons next year." Pappas is gratified by response to his programs, and he believes business conditions are such that September and October meets will stimulate "The Trend of Racing." Suffolk began with a ,000 purse minimum, increased it to ,300 after the first two weeks, and the purses are graduated up to ,000. The club will bid for more of the- better horses next season. AAA, Turf ana: Twenty-five New England breeders have subscribed to Rockinghams inaugural New England Futurity, for the produce of studs in the area, in 1952 . . . Gansetts ,500 Nursery Stakes will be the richest two-year-old event up to July 21, of the season down East . . The exhibition by Babe Didrikson Zaharias attracted many golfers to Suffolk on Massachusetts Day. . .For a time it appeared Citations underpinning would defeat him in his quest of that ,000,000, but we are-told. Jimmy Jones is encouraged to hope he will achieve his objective this summer. . .Blue Falcon, for whom 00,000 once was calmly rejected, ran unplaced recently for ,000 . .L. P. Dpherty disapproves of trimming yearlings feet to make them track straight, on the theory this creates a greater strain than a natural tendency to toe irV»or out.
