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— 1 11 "iniri 1 iiriTinThiTiWffTTl MRS. CLARA ADAMS ■ ■ — Mrs. Clara Adams Has Saddled Four Winners at Belmont Park Mother of F. D. Adams Tells Of Trip to England and Try In National With Refugio By TOM OREILLY Staff Correspondent BELMONT PARK, Elmont, L. I., N. Y., June 13.— Rave all you like about White Hat Ben Jones, Sunny Jim Pitzsimmons, Tiger John Gaver and the rest of the elegant equine educators, but my favorite race horse conditioner is Mrs. Clara Adams, a little, white-haired lady who has saddled four winners to date at Belmont Park. Her average is slightly terrific — and if that aint training, Clyde Beatty keeps house cats. Mrs. Adams winners have been Extra Points and Ramillion, owned by L. H. Nellis, of Oakville, Ontario, Canada, and her own Errolford. All are jumpers. Altogether, Mrs. Adams has a dozen horses in her stable, including two owned by Col. K. R. Marshall, president of the Ontario Jockey Club, and another belonging to Fred Bontecou, well-known master of New Yorks Millbrook Hunt. In the off season, she_takes them all to Southern Pines, South Carolina. Mrs. Adams got into the horse business by accident back in the thirties when her husband became ill. Frank Adams is well known as the former manager of the Greenwich Polo Club and the Watertown Hunt Club, back in the days when the lateBuell Hemingway was master. The family moved to Phoenix, Ariz., and then down to a small ranch near San Ysidro, Calif., just across the border from Tia Juana. It was in California that Joan, now Mrs. Joan Adams Ketcham, bought three race horses. Dooley Adams, the well-known steeplechase rider, was getting along fine with a little jumping pony. Have to Earn Way or Be Sold The kids were just fooling around in their fathers footsteps, but the horses began to get expensive. Mrs. Adams decided "theyll either have to earn a living or well sell em." Then she took out a trainers license, boarded a few more horses and went into business. Nine years ago, the whole family came east to the Belmont Park meeting and . theyve been here ever since. Two years ago, by the way, the first five horses Mrs. Adams sent to the post came home winners, scoring f at Camden, Pimlico, Belmont and the adjacent hunts. L Of course, Mrs. Adams and Dooley, who started his steeplechasing career in California at an age that might interest the truant officer, are looking for another Refugio, the great gray who went to England for a fine tour of the Grand National course, in 1947. Everybody" knows about I Refugios fine record on this side of the water but few are aware of the experiences this little family had with their horse on that Grand National expedition. The horse was put aboard a Liberty ship , that left for Liverpool on Thanksgiving Day. In the old days it was customary to ship horses in regular stalls below decks. However, Mrs. Adams informs me, since the war, the United States Department of • Agriculture has forbidden this practice and demands that equihes be placed on deck. Took 21 Days to Cross Ocean "I was none too keen about this," says u Mrs. Adams, "but there was nothing else [ we could do. The shipping line had a groom I I trusted because he had handled hunters * and other horses for us when we brought them over from Ireland and they always : ► arrived in fine shape. So it was with com- ; plete confidence that we boarded the ■ Queen Elizabeth. "Well, it was one of the wickedest win- i ters the North Atlantic had seen .for some 1 time. It took that old Liberty ship 21 days 1 to make the crossing and I was told it 3 , nearly broke in half. Refugio had come i right from the Pimlico track and was still i clipped. Yet that groom took his blanket , off and he nearly forze to death. Waves ] washed all around his stall. We met him k on his arrival and were heartsick. "We took him to Wiltshire and that had 1 t to be the winter that everything in Eng- i land froze solid. The ground was like con- 2 crete. So we took him to the south of 1 " England and worked him by the sea. The freeze was so bad that racing was post- £ ■ poned in England for six weeks. Refugio 1 only had one race before the big one. 1 "Usually the Cheltenham Gold Cup is the big conditioner for the National. That i race was postponed until after the Na- £ tional. We didnt push Refugio in his tune- l up because he had an unusual amount of * weight up — 168 pounds. Y know in Eng- £ land they operate exactly opposite from our system. They put topweight on a g strange horse and then if he cant make it, 1 they drop the weight accordingly. "Well, there were 57 starters and 17 fin- 1 fixers. Good old Refugio ran a grand race. i £ l * £ g 1 1 We have the movies at home and you should see the high way he took those big National fences. Dooley told me later, Mother, I could have finished better than seventh. Fifth at least. But after we got over that last fence I was so happy at the grand ride he gave me that I just couldnt hit him. " Thats the kind of bunch around Belmonts leading trainer today. Take a bow, mom!
