view raw text
W E l G H I N G I N By EVAN SHIPMAN SARATOGA, Saratoga Springs, N. Y., Aug. 25. Grecian Queen, definitely the leader of her division, will be given a searching test tomorrow in the mile and a quarter Alabama, where Mrs. B. F. Whitakers game little daughter of Heliopolis must concede 12 pounds to the Diana Handicap winner, Sabette; 17 to C. V. Whitneys stretch-running Mahmoud filly, Ming Yellow; Greentrees Cherry Fizz and Howell Jacksons Ballerina, and nine to John S. Phipps Spinning Top. In addition to establishing her superiority over those of her own age, Grecian Queen, you will recall, ran away with the rich New Castle Handicap at Delaware Park last July, none of the older mares being able to trouble her seriously. Tomorrow, Mrs. Whitakers filly will have the support of two stablemates, Tiny Request and Miss Nancy, and they may prove of aid to her in assuring a fast pace, but when the real issue becomes clear in the stretch, it is certain to be Grecian Queen who must stand or fall on her own merits. Because of the weights, this is bound to be a hard race for Grecian Queen, even harder we would say, than was the New Castle. The point is that Sabette, from a stable that makes something of a specialty of this semi-classic, was good enough to have run Grecian Queen to the shortest of heads in the Coaching Club American Oaks last spring at Belmont Park, and, in the Oaks, Sabette and Grecian Queen were equally weighted. AAA That close call in the Oaks can. be explained. Grecian Queen inthe earlier stages of the mile and three-eighths race at Belmont, had disposed of as fast a filly as Cerise Reine, and of several others whose forte was speed rather than staying ability. When Sabette came along to deliver a final challenge, Grecian Queen had to depend on her fighting heart and that alone to get her past the Filly Champion Faces Her Sternest Encounter Grecian Queen Not Favored by Alabama Weights Spa Fixture Has Been Marked by Form Upsets Small Field Forecast for Fridays Cup Event wire. She was literally reeling, but she stuck it out. In the New Castle, at tomorrows distance of a mile and a quarter, there was also plenty of speed, but we thought that Grecian Queen was better rated than she had been previously at Belmont. In any event, no plodder ever looked remotely like catching her at Wilmington. The catch, as far as the Alabama is concerned, is that Sabette may have been a mere plodder at the time of the Oaks, but the Alsab filly strikes us, as quite a lot more than that now. Her Diana was a big race, and Sabette dominated the field from the moment she was given her head at the three-eighths pole, running down the fleet Cana-diana at the head of the stretch, and then drawing off. Grecian Queen is good and very goodj but the big question tomorrow is whether or not she can concede the much-improved Sabette 12 pounds. AAA Upsets, and most of them due to pronounced difference in weights, have been frequent in. the history of the Alabama. This is one of the oldest fixtures on the American racing calendar? but without going very far back we can point out a number of what looked like startling form reversals at the time. There was the year that Sabettes stable sent out Vienna to trim Calumets Twilight Tear, and the renewal in which Busanda, from the same barn, humbled Alfred Vanderbilts Next Move. Twilight Tear and Next Move enjoyed even greater contemporary prestige than does Grecian Queen, but they were each beaten by weight in the Alabama. Good Gamble, High Fleet and Fairy Chant were other top fillies who met defeat in this race, and again it was the same story of weight. Up to the present, we have thought of Grecian Queen as certainly a high-class filly, and one who is unquestionably dead game, but we have hesitated to rank her with the best of other seasans. Should she carry through in the Alabama under her staggering assignment, it will be impossible any longer to withhold the highest praise. " A A A Native Dancers absence from the field that will dispute the mile and five-eighths Saratoga Cup can come as no surprise. The champion is just back from Chicago, and his race there in the American Derby may have been more difficult than it looks on paper. Eddie Arcaro, riding him for the first time, says that he asked Native Dancer for speed on the backstretch, and obtained little response, the colt making his move, according to the jockey, "when he felt like it." Actually, the gray had nothing like a close call in the Washington Park race, but for all that, he must have given Arcaro a tense moment or two, and it would have been a sad afternoon indeed had that brilliant run not finally been forthcoming. Native Dancer has been in continuous training for a long time, standing the grind wonderfully, but his connections may feel it wise to let up on -him for a brief interval before sharpening the colt for his encounter with Tom Fool in the mile Sysonby at Belmont Park late next month. Granting that the two champions are going to meet in both the Sysonby and the mile and three-sixteenths Pimlico Special a month later, we would guess that the conditions of the earlier .race were slightly in the older horses favor, while Native Dancer would ap- Continued on Page Forty-Three WEIGHING IN By EVAN SIIIPMAN Continued from Page Fifty-Two pear a trifle better suited by the route of the Special. AAA Small fields are no novelty for the Saratoga Cup, and on three occasions the race has been a walk-over, Exterminator coming out alone in 1921 as did the Fitzsimmons stable entry of Isolator and Fenelon in 40 and Stymie in 46. There have been some memorable two horse races for the Cup, as when Exterminator defeated the filly, Cleopatra in 20 and Johren beat Roamer in 18. More recently, Reigh Count had only Display as an opponent, but that Cup was the fastest in the long annals of the race, the John D. Hertz colt stepping the distance in 2:55. This year, Alerted, impressive winner of the Saratoga Handicap last Saturday, is certain to be a strong choice for the Cup, and it looks now is if the Bull Lea five-year-old would have very little opposition. William Ziegler, Jr.s Bit o Fate and Ogden Phipps Great Captain are both possibilities, but they would seem to be outclassed by Alerted who, were this a handicap, would undoubtedly be forced to concede them many pounds.
