view raw text
111 "" Weighing In By EVAN SHIPMAN Acorn Stakes Merit More Emphasis Could Be Event of Real Importance Stella Aurata Earned High Rating BELMONT PARK, Elmont, L. I., N. Y., May 8. — With very little encouragement, we have been inclined to speak of the Acorn Stakes — tomorrows feature here at Belmont Park — as if this mile race for three - year - old fillies were the American equivalent of the English One Thousand Guineas and the French Poule DEssai des Pouliches. The parallel is exact enough insofar as distance, scale weights and the | : l i I l r Acorns relation to our Oaks is concerned, but actually the English and French fixtures are both far more important than our own Acorn. Because of its relatively low value, the Acorn remains a "local" race, while our Coaching Club American Oaks is a true classic in the strictest sense of that much abused term. Stables that do not ordinarily campaign on the Metropolitan circuit never think of sending a filly to Long Island, pointing her especially for the Acorn. This race, in their eyes, is just not that important. For our part, we would like to see more emphasis placed on the Acorn, just as we believe that certain spring stakes for three-year-olds are actually exaggerated in value beyond their true importance. For the time being, maybe we better admit that our turf does not possess a real equivalent of the One Thousand Guineas or of the Longchamp race. Accepting that premise, the Westchester . Association . could easily, . and profitably, we believe, remedy the omission. One reaching his best form late in the fall, Mrs. Marian duPont Scotts steeplechaser, Sea Legs, wound up his 1952 campaign by capturing both the Belmont Grand National and the Noel Laing Memorial Handicap at Montpelier. He did not carry much weight on either occasion, and he was only assigned 144 pounds yesterday in Belmonts International Steeplechase Handicap as against 162 for Oedipus, that one declinging the issue. Sea Legs, who started coupled in yesterdays stake with Rigan McKinneys veteran, Hot, began where he had left off, winning in an agreeably close finish from the rank outsider, Hunting Fox, and the starting highweight of the small but select field, Mrs. E. duPont Weirs The Mast. Because of the deep going, this renewal of the International was not a fast run race, but Hot did cut out an acceptable pace, although he eventually tired and then tumbled. Well ridden by the French jockey, Albert Foot, Sea Legs was under a strong hold for a turn of the field, but he moved to Hot with authority at the 10th obstacle, and then had more than enough speed to stave off the somewhat belated challenge offered by The Mast. Foot has long been noted as an excellent judge of pace, recalling in this respect such fine steeplechase riders of the past as Rigan McKinney and Billy Jones. Several inquiries have recently been made of us concerning the Irish sprinter, Stella Aurata, who scored a short time back at the Jamaica meeting from Goodwillow and a nice field, returning his sparse backers an astonishing 85 to 1. Off-hand, we only know that Stella Aurata "had won in Ireland," and that he had shown very modest form in a brief campaign here last season. Going to the "Timeform" edition of "Race-Horses of 1951," an English publication covering all English and Irish races for that season, we learn that this bay son of Arctic Star — My Aid, by Knight of the Garter, had a rating in their version of the "Free Handicap" of 126 pounds, this as against 142 for Windy City n., leader of that generation in Ireland, England and France. "Timeform" comments that Stella Aurata was "officially rated the second best two-year-old in Eire after Windy City II. He was winner of six of his eight starts though disqualified for crossing on the occasion of his first win. The winning races included the Waterford Testimonial Stakes by 12 lengths, and the Boyd-Rochfort Plate by three lengths from Lady Sophia. He failed by three and a half lengths to concede 12 pounds to Tip the Bootle, and finished unplaced under 137 pounds in the Leopardstown Produce Stakes. His sire, Arctic Star, who never raced, is by Nearco out of Solar Flower, Continued on Page Forty -Four WEIGHING IN I By EVAN SHIPMAN Continued from Page Two and therefore half-brother to Solar Slipper and full brother to Arctic Sun, the dam of the Epsom Derby winner, Arctic Prince." From that description, it is easy to see that Stella Aurata had plenty of accomplishment in his native land behind him. The races he won may not have been worth much money in terms of American dollars, but they carry prestigate. This was a very fast juvenile, if we can make a comparison of Irish and American times for five furlongs, and there is no doubt that he could shade a minute at that distance with plenty of weight up, a feat rendered difficult because of the "up-and-down" nature of Irish race courses. But the only real "yardstick" we possess in estimating this sprinters class is supplied by Windy City II. Our opinion of that fine colt was so high that we consider it a real compliment to be ranked within 16 pounds of him. In the recently published edition of the American Racing Manual, we have paid tribute to this remarkable Irish colt. From what we saw of him at Santa Anita, where he went wrong while finishing second to Hill Gail in the Santa Anita Derby, we were sure that Windy City II. was the peer of any colt in America at distances up to and including nine furlongs. Whether or not he would have proved able to carry his great speed beyond that limit, we will not attempt to guess. Ordinarily, we are inclined to take an owners or trainers enthusiasm for their colt with a grain of salt. They all look very good, we find, when they carry your own colors. Nevertheless, Joe Donahue, who raced Stella Aurata in Ireland and then imported him, was so insistent to us in regard to his colts chances for that recent surprising dash at Jamaica, that we were forced to pay him some heed. For a trivial enough reason, because we had once written an appreciative paragraph concerning another Irish importation of Donahues — High Bandit, a potentially good horse who bowed a tendon in his very first start at Saratoga — this owner was anxious to do us a good turn, and he insisted that Stella Aurata was not only returning to the races this spring in top form, but that he outclassed anything he would meet in that initial start. Well, so it turned out, but, frankly, we were almost as surprised as anybody else when Stella Aurata came first to the wire. Before the race, we had almost thought that we were doing Donahue a favor in placing our small wager on his horse.
