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Between Races By OSCAR OTIS CHURCHILL DOWNS Louisville Ky May 1 if Master Fiddle winner of the Wood Memorial can score in the Derby on aturaay ana ne nas a great many fans and horsemen in his cor ¬ ner the score for the J Myhelyn Stable can be chalked up 0 bidding fever on the part of Nick Martini the New Rochelle furniture king Martini has been dabbling with horses in a minor way for the last six or seven years j toga patron on a few occasions One sea ¬ son he bid up to 4300 on a colt subse ¬ quently named Battlefield which went for 4500 and while he hasnt been kicking himself since knowing that such things are a part and parcel of horse racing he determined that the next time he liked a colt he wouldnt be touted off In the instance of Master Fiddle Martini detected something he liked about the yearling and had the youngster led out for inspection at least 30 times Pretty near worked the groom to death he recalls but the knocks against the colt were terrific They said the colt was too big which maybe he was although it later turned out to be merely sales fat Despite all the advice of my friends I determined to go to 6000 But I caught at the ringside what they call bidding madness and kept going til I got him for 10000 I thought afterward that maybe I had made a big mistake but nevertheless I have never wavered in my fundamental first judgment of the colt Before I came into racing I was a bridle path enthusiast rode a lot and thought I knew a lot about horses But upon be ¬ coming an owner I discovered that I didnt know very much Im learning as I go along But I have found out that the so called bidding fever which carries some people away at an auction can be good as well as bad badChurchill Churchill Downs like most other ner ican race track is almost entirely mech ¬ anized but a vistage of the past still re ¬ mains on the backstretch where the sprawling administration building is still called the mule barn Churchill used to take pride in its 20 head of mules all purpose animals who did all the track conditioning as well as the task now ac ¬ complished by tractors and vans We have six head of horses now says track superintendent Tom Young but we use them only occasionally when the track is off and the use of horses is deemed more desirable than tractors Good mules just dont seem to be available any more at least not in this part of Kentucky In many ways it is a pity that the mule is disappearing for good mules could do most anything Roscoe Goose adds that the age of mechanization has changed the Derby for when he won with Done rail in 1913 carts wagons and surreys descended upon the Downs from most everywhere giving an equine flare to the Derby atmosphere that has not been pos ¬ sible Im not knocking the automobile hastily adds Goose merely pointing out that times including the Derby have changed changedDerby Derby contender Hannibal has a story Continued on Page ThirtyFive BETWEEN RACES RACESBy By OSCAR OTIS Continued from Page Three Threeof of more than passing interest as Bayarjd Sharp tells it the story of lightning hit ¬ ting in reverse so to speak for when he purchased the colt by Roman from the Man o War mare War Jitters at Keene land sales for 15000 he thought he was getting a sprinter and a quick purse win ¬ ner As it turned out he was more than pleasantly astonished to get a colt that not only was quick more than winning himself out as a twoyearold 23925 to be exact but a horse who demonstrated enough distance potential to entitle him to a trip to Kentucky and a Derby try Han ¬ nibal has never beaten a good horse says Sharp but he has been close enough to the best and we feel he himself earned his Derby berth Ive had the good fortune to own one good horse Tide Rips who fin ¬ ished second in the Belmont Stakes to Phalanx So far Hannibal has not proven himself any Tide Rips but he has raced bodldly and honestly Sharp reveals an ¬ other unusual item in that he came into flat racing through another quirk of cir ¬ cumstance His thoroughbred purchases were made with an eye to developing year ¬ lings into steeplechasers at about four but so many that he purchased were devoid of fence ability that he raced them on the flat Hannibal however was not so pur ¬ chased but rather as a sprint prospect prospectI I also was surprisedto get the name Hannibal adds Sharp I wanted a name that suggested the Romans and came up with Scipto Africanus But was too long so I thought of Hannibal He was a good general too even though Scipio Africanus licked him Although I feared such a famous name as Hannibal had been taken I chanced sending it to The Jockey Club and it was accepted Hannibal and Gushing Oil incidentally figure in some unusual family relation ¬ ships for a Derby Hannibal is trained by William J Passmore Sr will be rid ¬ den by his son Bill Passmore Jr and is rubbed by the senior Passmores brother Hannibal was bred by Harrie B Scott while Gushing Oil was bred by his son Dan Harrie is no stranger to Kentucky Derby representation having been the breeder of Blue Swords but Gushing Oil is the first thoroughbred from the Dan Scott place on Russell Cave Pike to be a Derby starter The Dan and Harrie B acreages adjoin adjoinHorses Horses and People Bill Veeneman chair ¬ man of the board of Churchill Downs esti ¬ mates the really modern era of the Derby as being from circa 1924 until the present The first crowd of more than 100000 did not show up until 1946 Special trains to the Derby are here in profusion but the one from California sponsored by Jack Dempsey holds all mileage records In ¬ cidentally pilots here tell me that it wont be many more years before a fellow in Los Angeles San Francisco Mexico City or Vancouver B C can leave home in the morning see the Derby and return home that same evening Air transport speed is continually improving and with the advent of true jets in commercial planes the Derby will be within easy time reach of everyone living in a major population cen ¬ ter on the continent People in San Fran ¬ cisco today think nothing of flying to Hol ¬ lywood Park or Santa Anita of a morning returning home in time for dinner and this same attitude will be the next major Derby development except that this con ¬ cept of time rather than space will be national rather than regional Or at least so say the airmen
