view raw text
BETWEEN RACES By Oscar Otisl HOLLYWOOD PARK, Inglewood, Calif. May 23. Last summer, an inconspicuous fellow at the back. of. the Keeneland sales pavilion created something of a furor when he started, bidding-, and did not stop until he had paid the top price of the sale for a filly which he finally named Perfection. The man was C HI Jones, of Long. Beach, who was utilizing the sales arena as one means of bolstering apla nned turf empire,, the others being, a purchase of "made" stock and breeding. The Jones plan, was not a. sudden one. action being; undertaken only after long: consideration in the light of experience with, several years of thoroughbred ownership the most notable horse in. the. pre-expansion Jones stable, being Phar Rang. While Perfection, has not as yet graduated, from the ranks of non-winners, one of the purchased "made" horses has: turned out a minor sensation, this being Lights. Up while, another, Warcos, an accident of breeding, is our choice tomorrow to win the twelfth running: of the Will Rogers Stakes, a six-furlong affair and first, major stepping stone of the summer toward Hollywood Parks championship race for coastal sophomores, the 0,Q00 added. Westerner. Warcos "got good," as. they say on the race track, at Golden Gate Fields this spring, winning- one race there in. 1:08, fast time even if the track were downhill, which it is not, at the. expense of older horses, then proved it all was no fluke by winning the Hollywood Premiere opening- day from the best band, of older sprinters that could be mustered, against, him. A A. A Warcos is an oddity as good, horses. go, even in this land where the bizarre is often the commonplace. He is by Lycos,, a hardhitting but by no means top-notch racer in his day, and who- happened to be bred to the mare War Whisk, just because Lycos was being freshened up for a spell at the time the breeding: season came along, not because the Jones had an idea of making: him into a sire. When the season was over Lycos was returned to the racing, wars, and entered for ,500. Jones lost his horse, the purse, and a bet all at the same time, Bill Butcher taking him for that amount. Now that Warcos was proved so flashy, his investment is worth a great deal, and we un-ders nd Lycos is now back at stud with a great deal of interest being evinced in his Warcos Rated Oddity in Breeding; 4 May Rule Choice for Will Rogers Lights Up Bargain Buy for Jones Change Conventional Stake Names book for 1953. As for Warcos, he raced last vnter in an. optional claiming race, the claimers being in for 0,000, although trainer Hack Ross did not elect to take advantage of the claiming angle and thereby carry less, weight. The man explains that he thought Warcos had possibilities all along; but that, the colt bucked five times in a row in. races, f was one of the few horses who was fired to cure bucked shins. AAA Lights Up has already proved a bargain, buy for Jones, having cost about 0,000, and. his earnings to date for the Long Beach, sportsman have reached more than 0,000, plus the moral satisfaction of having beaten Intent in the 0,000 mile and a quarter Golden. Gate Handicap. Lights Up is alive today because of good horse sense and intelligence, for he got his leg stuck through a "fence" while being unloaded at the Inglewood airport last fall upon his arrival from the East, and Hack Ross tells us that had the horse not sensed what was happening and the danger, he would have broken the leg for sure. As it was, Lights Up actually helped with his own "rescue" by his own exercise of judgment in using; leverage when, sandbags were placed under his foot to help him get his leg out of the bear trap. We had been under the impression that the subsequent enforced rest had made a new horse out of Lights Up, but Ross, says no, and attributes his improvement in form solely to the brisk and bracing climate "of San Francisco Bay. Some Easterners may smile at this, but Westerners take their climate as a factor in a horses form, or physical and mental heatlh, as a really important factor. While one cannot be too exact and scientific about the matter, it has proven out through the last 15 years that horses who race in Seattle in the summer run over their heads, in San Francisco for a period of several weeks after arrival there, and the same thing happens again when horses from San. Francisco race in Southern California. On the credit side of the weather south of TehachapL Mountains, it can be said with, some degree of assurance that as a rule, horses with, a tendency toward rheumatic conditions, and elderly horses, thrive and take on a new lease on life upon entering the sub-tropical atmosphere. The latter hypothesis was prety well proven at Cali-ente and Tijuana in the old days long before Southern California racing became a modern reality. In any event, Ross gives all credit to the San Francisco sparkle as being the difference between Lights Up being just another horse and a good one. AAA While Hollywood Park is understandably proud of its Q0,0Q net guaranteed to winner of the Gold Cup, it has the warmest spot in its corporate heart reserved for the Will Rogers, and with, good reason. Will Rogers was a lover of horses and enjoyed the sport of the masses thoroughly. Before his. untimely death, in an airplane accident in Alaska, he was a familiar figure at Hollywood Park. Until this year, the Will Rogers ; was run as a. handicap event, but this summer was changed to allowance conditions, an item in which we see no harm inasmuch as the Westerner itself is- an allowance race, and not a scale weight stake. A . A. Hollywood Park has steered clear of conventional names for its stakes races, some years ago having changed the Hollywood Derby into the Westerner, but one ana-chromism still remains, the Hollywood Oaks, which will be decided on Saturday, June 7. It is no surprise to learn, then, that there is a movement on foot to have the name of that race, changed to one more typically Californian, to wit, "the Eucalyptus." This tree, while a native of Australia, where it is known as a gum, was transplanted to California in the early days, is now one of the most familiar trees in the entire state except in the far north and at high, altitudes. There is a "hedge" of them on the backstretch, planted there I to shield some ugly old oil wells and a housing subdivision, from the eyes of the Hollywood patrons and center them instead on the ducks in the infield, not to mention the lakes and flowers. Changing the Oaks to the Eucalyptus would be no more precendent shaking than changing the Pimlico Oaks to the Black-Eyed Susan. Purists might point out that the Hollywood Gold Cup is not a novel name, the only one left, and while we doubt if the name will be changed we personally think it mightnt be a bad idea to do so, and call it the Thomas W. Simmons Stakes in honor of the man who did so much for modern-day California racing. We could think of less appropriate ideas. After all, the greatest race in the world, the Derby, is named after a man who did much for the sport. It wasnt his family name, of course but. it was the name by which the world best knew Lord Stanley, twelfth Earl of Derby.
