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i i *| On the Trot I 1 By MORRIE KURLANSKY I Youthful Billy Rouse Successful % Was Tutored by Late Guy Crippen J Racing Public Stable onChiCircuit I MAYWOOD PARK, Maywood. 111., May 9. — Considering the fact that over 80 I trainers and drivers are engaged in the battle for leading drivers honors at May-wood Park and that the spread among the first 20 drivers is not more than three wins, anyone would agree that a 33 1/3 win percentage and a 90 per cent participation in the purse distribution is more than a worthwhile achievement. The man who accomplished this . not only is the youngest professional | trainer and driver currently campaigning , at the West Side oval but also one of the i most talented harness horsemen in the nation. His name is William "Billy" Rouse, 29 years old and a native of Iron Mountain, Mich. Followers of harness rac- J ing in the Chicago area might well remember that Billy who, with his always smiling face, looks much younger than he actually is, was already on hand when Maywood Park first opened back in 1946. Billy had just been discharged from the Navy, where he had honorably served for over four years and been decorated with the Purple Heart and quite an array of other medals since he was engaged in no less than 21 landing operations and invasions North Africa and Normandy, as well as in the Pacific. Soon after his return, he was entrusted with the care of nine harness horses belonging to some of his friends and started his career as a trainer at the inaugural Maywood Park meeting. Although he had only moderate stock to race, he had a fairly successful season and the following two years his trips to the winners circle became more and more frequent to attract the attention of the public and his fellow horsemen alike. What he had shown in his first three years was enough to cause Edward Cobb, the well-known Ohio trainer and owner, to offer Billy a position as assistant trainer and driver with his good stable. The. next three years Billy campaigned with the Cobb menage from coast to coast and it was now that he made the headlines of the sports pages in places like New York, Chicago. Los Angeles, Detroit, and Hamburg. N. Y. In the years from 1948 to 1951 Billy won a number of the nations foremost harness stakes, and his name is forever connected with the worlds fastest double-gaited performer. Hodgen by Schuyler, who, in 1950, trotted the mile in 2:02y5 at Santa Anita and paced the same distance in 1:585 at Syracuse, N. Y. Although Hodgen was driven by Eddie Cobb in these record performances, Billy was in the sulky when this exceptional horse won the Maywood I Park Pacing Derby, a 5,000 affair: the 5,000 Great Lakes Pace at Buffalo, N. Y.: the 0,000 Invitational Pace, also at the Hamburg track; the 0,000 San Diego Pace at Santa Anita, and numerous other stakes all over the country. Besides Hodgen, the Cobb stable at that time also included Gene Abbe and Jerry The First, two free-for-all pacers that were guided by Billy to some of their best victories. While Billy in these three years with the Cobb stable had more than his share of success, his best- year was still to come. During the winter training season, 1951-1952, Billy was offered a position with one of the nations outstanding harness racing outfits, the famous Saunders Mills Stables of Toledo, Ohio. Since the Ohio establishment is one of the largest in the country, Saunders being a great buyer of choice yearlings every fall, the racing stable is always split into two divisions. Billy was given the older horses that were raced in New York and Detroit and the various Grand Circuit meetings, of course, in between, while the two and three-year-olds were handled by Hugh Bell. With Stormyway 2:01, Billy swept the Wolverine Raceway, Detroit, features and Scottish Chief established a new track record at Laurel Raceway, Md. when Billy guided the Chief Abbedale son to a victory in 2:03%. Mr. Dean 2:02?5 with Billy at the reins, defeated the nations fastest sidewheelers at Yonkers and Roosevelt Raceways, N. Y. The Saunders Mills Stables, furthermore, had in Knox Hanover 2:02, Elby Hanover 2:02, Thunderclap 1:59, a trio of the best two- and three-year-old harness horses, which on several occasions, had Billy as their pilot in stakes winning efforts. A unique member of the Ohio stable was the four-year-old filly, Nancy Song, who won aU her 17 starts in 1952. It is too much to relate all of Billys successes last year, there were too many of them. Suffice it to say thai his stable won the sum of 96,000 in 1952, a good part of which came on account of Billys excellent horsemanship. Billy, who originally had started out in the racing game as a jockey but soon enough had to give up any aspirations to become a second Eddie Arcaro due to his ever increasing weight, then became connected with the Guy Crippen stable. The renowned Wisconsin trainer, who died last year after having won the sports most coveted stakes, the Hambletonian, with Mainliner for the Milwaukee patron, R. A. Kroening, gave Billy the education in harness racing, which, as Billy freely admits, had a good deal to do with his rapid climb to the top of the profession. Billy regards Crippen as one of the best harness horsemen who ever lived in this country, and in this opinion he is not alone by any means. Chicago racegoers remember Crippen for his triumphs with Highland Ellen, the money-winningest pacing mare of all time, and the outstanding trotter, Lord Steward, in Maywood Park stake events in the past few years. When Billy raced here in 1946 he met Miss Betty McEvoy of Maywood, 111., and married her the same year. The young couple of necessity had to travel a lot in the first five years of their marriage and when last year the stork put in an appearance at Billys house with a delay of five and a half weeks as Billy relates with a big sigh , the young trainer did not renew his contract with Saunders Mills in order to be able to be with his family more than just a few weeks in the whole year. So he decided to open up a public stable at Maywood Park and race in the Chicago area all through the 1953 season. At present he has 10 horses in training belonging to three patrons. While he has not started the younger stock yet, all his older horses have been winners or earned at least part of the purses raced for. Within a few days he will have three more horses bedded down in his barn, namely, My Spencer, Evendale, and Rhythm Withem, all property of Dr. and Mrs. Knisely, the Ohio breeders who stand Hodgen and Gene Abbe at their Even time Farm. When asked what makes his stable click, Billy gave all credit to his capable helpers, saying that good grooms make or break a stable. A horse who is not properly cared for and fed, the best man in the sulky cannot win. Realizing this since he was a groom himself with G. Crippen he pays his caretakers good wages, and though asking painstaking performing of all duties around the stable treats them as equals and friends.
