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i Trainers of Derby Contestants ✓ MISCHA "MICKEY" TENNEY, trainer of Swaps for Californian Rex Ellsworth, was top hand at the Ellsworth cattle ranch near Safford, Arizona, a little .uore than | 20 years ago. Shortly after, he moved up ■ to become trainer for the fledgling EUs- * worth stable of thoroughbreds. Tenney saddled his first winner at the Caliente I racetrack in Old Mexico, and has been a : successful trainer ever since. He has sort of "grown with the stable" and in Califor- nia today, is rated one of the best horse-« men there. He has done most of his racing i in California and at Caliente, with a few summer excursions with a division of the ; stable to Arlington - Washington parks, i Chicago. Tenney is an exceptionally hard «. worker a d oversees every detail himself. E Tenney prefers to ride what many consider : unfashionable riders, but if he is slyly . criticized for this, he doesnt mind. They ? are his riders, and they ride his way. His r regular stable rider, John Burton, took j leave of tb» turf several months ago to t serve two years as a Mormon missionary, : and, not having a replacement, he turned . to "outside riders" during the winter Santa i Anita meeting. Which is why Willie Shoe-C maker, not John Burton, is riding Swaps * in the Kentucky Derby this afternoon. CECIL WILHELM, trainer of Honeys Alibi for the W L Ranch of California, is a product of the old West, has been training horses for more than 25 years. He came originally from the desert around Barstow, took over some horses for E. Byron Seins, and has been a familiar figure in Western racing circles ever since.- His best known post was as trainer for William E. Boeing of Seattle, and he saddled Slide Rule at Churchill Downs in 1943, Slide Rule running third to Count Fleet and Blue Swords. When Boeing retired from racing, Wilhelm farmed for a while on his own place near Santa Anita, but returned to active racing a year ago, and took over the W L horses last November. He is being assisted with Honeys Alibi by one time riding champion Joey Inzelone. If a turf writer were asked to name a "typical turfman," he in all probability might name a man like JOHNNY KER-MATH, trainer of Derby starter Blue Lem. For Kermath, a native of Brooklyn, has "been around" horses all his life. He had a brief early career as a jockey, both on the. flat and over the jumps, and recalls that he rode his first winner for August Belmont at Belmont Park in 1905. He quit the saddle in 1915, became an exercise boy, and, the records show, galloped Sir Huon, winner of the 1906 Derby, when that colt was a four-year-old. As a trainer, Kermath has conditioned horses in this country "from coast to coast and border to bor- der" and also trained in Europe for a spell. Kermath is training a division of the Harvey C. Fruehauf Stable, and Blue Lem is in Kermaths care. Others in the Fruehauf Stable are trained by A. Lamoureux. CECIL LOCKLEAR, trainer of Trim Destiny, is saddling his first Derby starter this year. Born in Brady, Texas, in 1907, Locklear started on the turf as a jockey, but, after becoming too heavy, and too quickly, he began to help his father train. He has been "on his own" for more than 20 years. Locklear considers Trim Destiny the best horse he has ever handled to date. JOHN W. CLARK, veteran trainer for Nabesna, admits to "52 years on the race track," having started out as a horseman at the age of. 12 from his native city of Boise, Idaho. By the time he was 15, Clark had managed to get a horse of his own, and the proudest feat, perhaps, of his long career on the turf was when he actually trained the horse himself at the old Santa Anita race track in California in 1907, and saw the horse, Master Lester, win. Clark rode for several years on the West Coast, notably at the old Emeryville track and at the Meadows track, Seattle. For the last 30 years, he has been an owner and trainer, racing mostly up and down the Pacific Coast. He has been associated with the stable of Clifford Mooers for the last eight years, and while Nabesna is his first Derby starter, he has been racing at Churchill Downs for the last four spring meetings.
