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Sextet Vies in Valley Station Purse Jo Pilot Is Making 1953 Debut Today Holton Miss Rested Since Downs Victory Last Fall; Gray Challenge Main Threat CHURCHILL DOWNS, Louisville, Ky., May 11. — The Valley Station Purse at six furlongs for fillies and mares, four-year-olds and older, is the headline attraction on an unusually well-balanced program slated for tomorrow at this spacious Falls City racing grounds. The feature drew an overnight field of six quick performers and the high weight under the allowance terms is L. F. and P. Holtons homebred Jo Pilot, who will take up 118 pounds. She will have the saddle services of jockey Johnny Heck-mann, who began action today as the fourth leading reinsman of the Downs spring meeting. Jo Pilot, a four-year-old daughter of Jet Pilot and Jo Agnes, will make her 1953 debut in the Valley Station. The Holton miss hasnt been under silks since she won the six and one-half furlongs Charm Purse here last November 14, on which occasion she shouldered 118 pounds and stepped along in 1:17%, defeating Edward D. Ax-tons homebred Gray Challenge by a three-quarters length margin. Jo Pilot scored in two of her other seven engagements last year, her most important achievement being a convincing victory over Recover, Roman Miss and other speedy fillies and mares in Arlington Parks Artful Handicap. Gray Challenge, handsome but diminutive gray four-year-old daughter of Challenge Me and Chilla May, will renew her duel tomorrow with Jo Pilot. The Axton filly, a good winner in New Orleans during her winter campaign, recently finished second to Iceberg II., in the one mile Kentucky Colonels Purse here and she is remembered by local patrons for her accounting in the Admiration Handicap last autumn. Gray Challenge gets in the Valley Station with 112 pounds and trainer J. Price Sallee announced this morning that clever Sherman Armstrong will be at the reins. Others Also Dangerous While Jo Pilot and Gray Challenge rate highly in the Valley Station, any one of the others in the overnight field would be dan,r_ gerous with the running of a "big race." Mr. and Mrs. Thomas M. Daniels Free For Me, 108; Ira Drymons Espy, 105; Brown Hotel Stables Ave, 106, and the Detroit-owned Biddy Bid, 110 pounds, from the Mr. and Mrs. James R. Collins stable, all have displayed flashes of class and may take some beating. Free For Me, who will be handled by Don Scurlock, ran fourth in the Douglas Park Handicap May 4, Biddy Bid raced well at Keeneland before transfer to the Downs and she was fourth in the good band that met in the Jeffersonville Purse here last week. William McKinley Cook is engaged to pilot Biddy Bid in the Valley Station. No jockeys had been named at a late hour today for Espy, who is entered with the apprentice allowance, and Ave. One of the better supporting offerings on the Tuesday card is the one mile seventh, which will bring together seven of the higher grade, three-year-old platers. Harold G. Bockmans Sweet Mural, Mrs. A. M. Creechs Barshoe, and Collier and Floyds Big Hearted are expected to draw the strongest support over such rivals as Martin and McKinneys Julians Joy, G. and G. Stables Alie-Ed, Mrs. H. L. Nathensons Force of Arms, and the Buddah Stables Dr. Milton H.. With but five days of the Kentucky spring season remaining, Churchill Downs officials expect to host another bumper crowd when the field for the initial event is called to the post tomorrow at the regular hour, 2:00 p. m.
