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- M Sportsmans Park Notebook Sonny Ray Williams Riding in Top Form; Hospitalized Nine Months Last Year By J. J. MURPHY J SPORTSMANS PARK, Cicero, HI., May 10. Sonny Ray Williams, a 24-year-old from Electra, Texas, is a boy with plenty of heart. Sonny Ray is a jockey and one of the best currently riding at Sportsmans Park. He has the distinction of having won the i first race of the 1954 Chicago season. But it is not that fact that gets us to the point of his courage. It is that he is staging a wonderful comeback "after having been hospitalized for nine months last year as the result of injuries suffered in a spill at Wheeling, W. Va. Williams accepted mounts for the first time this year at the Oaklawn Park meeting at Hot Springs and ended up second high on the jockey list. Howard Craig, a top-notch pilot, was the leader. Since arriving at Sportsmans Park he has steered seven winners and is well up on the jockey list. Although free-lancing, he rides most of the horses saddled by Earl Beezley, and the old "Miracle Man" does not select any "bad riders" to handle his stock. AAA Williams is unmarried and has no prospects at present. Says there is ample time for that. He makes his home with his f ather and mother in Electra, where his dad is an oil field worker. After finishing high school he had a year of college at Midwestern University in Wichita Falls, Texas. He then rode for a time on the smaller tracks in his home state before coming to Fair-mount Park three years ago and steering his first winner on a recognized course. One season he led the jockeys at Omaha. Williams weighs only 105 pounds and seems to have several years of service as a jockey ahead of him. AAA Arnold Winick, acting for his brother Albert, sold the three-year-old Emdon, a Peabody Memorial eligible, to Marion Van-Berg. Acting for Julie Kaplan, he sold Gumptious to the same horseman, while VanBerg in turn sold Mr. Wiggins to Miss Kaplan . . . Winick purchased the mare Kathleen R from Woddview Farm, and sent her to Crown Crest Farm in Kentucky where she will probably be mated with a prominent sire . . . Fritz Darigo, owner of the Hofbrau Stable, the horses of which are trained by Phil Reuter, was nri arrival from his Hallandale, Fla., home for a short visit . . . Jockey Robert L. Stevenson has returned to his home in Philadelphia to enjoy a rest ... Joe Jansen, who formerly trained the horses of Sam Wilson Jr., of Corpus Christi, Texas, arrived from Louisville and is seeking to get together a few horses for racing in the Chicago area this summer. AAA One of the first nominations received for the Hawthorne Gold Cup was that of Dixi-anas Sub Fleet, who won the rich event last year . . . Johnny Corcoran, who rode for the Greentree Stable for several seasons back in the twenties, is a valet in the jockeys room here . . . Had a variety of weather here last Saturday, cloudiness, hail, rain, snow, and finally sunshine . . . Heutel, victor in the feature race, was a stakes winner as a three-year-old, taking the Gateway Stakes at Waterford Park . . . The management of Lincoln Fields will put on a spread for racing officials, members of the press and their wives in the turf club of the new track this coming Sunday . . . Jockey Leslie Wickel is doing so well here that he canceled his contemplated trip to Fairmount. AAA The good two-year-old Mister Carter got back from Churchill Downs where he finished fourth in the Bashford Manor Stakes Saturday. He is owned by Mr. and Mrs. Tom Powell, of Houston, Texas, and trained by William Morrow . . . Ray Collins, a 43-year-old ex-jockey, suffered a broken shoulder when a horse he was exercising over, the Hawthorne strip Monday morning fell with him. Collins was taken to St. Anthonys Hospital, Chicago. . . . Trainer Tim Holt has made arrangements to ship W. Clyde MarthVs stakes runner, Phil D., to Detroit at the conclusion of the present session. Phil D. has yet to win in three tries here. . . . Shades of my ancestors! Never thought I would live to see the day when outriders, usually red coated, would be attired in Kelly green. But that is what is going to happen at Lincoln Fields. At that, there is no law against it. AAA Heart Flash may be the fastest five-furlong horse ever seen ih action here, and may be one of the quickest beginners in the land. He is owned by Mrs. Duncan MacLachlan and recently smashed a rather long standing five-eighths track record here. We recall another speed-burner out I Continued on Page Forty-Three Sportsmans Notebook By J. J. MURPHY Continued from Page Three of the gate in Motor Cop, who first raced for J. K. L. Ross, and we believe wound up in the stable of C. B. Irwin. . . . Milton Monroe would climb the highest mountain just to tack up a .poster for dear old Sportsmans Park, or for that matter for dear old Lincoln Fields, or dear old Hawthorne. Milton plays no favorites . . . Alfred Boulder, who finished third in his first start here, is one of the two holders of the six-furlong track record at Fort Miami, Toledo. . . . W. H. Bishop, the old horse trader, has purchased Dixie Spy from J. J. Grejgory, and sold Liability ta Myron Smith.
