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Delaware By Charles Hatton I Nations Leading Fillies in Delaware Oaks Hartack Currently Top U. S. Rider for 55 Turbine Trails in Attempt at Comeback - DELAWARE PARK, Stanton, Del., June 17. The sixteenth renewal of the nine furlongs Delaware Oaks, first of the idealistic Stanton clubs fabulous "Distaff Big Three," will spark up interest in proceedings here this week end, and it promises one of the seasons most significant three-year-old filly events. If the 10 who passed the entry box this benign spring morning face starter George Palmer, this will be the richest of all the Delaware Oaks, grossing 9,625 and yielding the winner a net purse of 7,040. Don Ross and his fellow members of the local club are more than pleased with horsemens response to their singularly valuable filly-and-mare events, and the Oaks has attracted every legitimate candidate for three-yearrold honors in this division, including the pro tem leader, High Voltage; the Kentucky Oaks winner, Lalun, and Mrs. Grahams pride and joy, Myrtles Jet. The veteran Max Hirsch, incidentally, is going to be fairly busy in the paddock Saturday, saddling no fewer than four of the entrants, in what is one of the most multiple couplings of recent years. At some risk of seeming a paralyzing bore, we still think that High Voltage is distinctly the-one-to-beat, unless the going should become unexpectedly deep and yielding. Those who are experts in such matters fancy she will be no more than 4-to-5, though she was-beaten off by the more-mature Parlo in the Top Flight Handicap in her latest essay, while trying to concede two pounds on the arbitrary weight scale. Wheatleys lovely gray homebred has trained well for her engagement and will have the riding services of the talented Eddie Arcard. Following this event, she points for the Gazelle, then the Delaware Handicap of an estimated gross of 50,00, which makes it the worlds richest filly-and-mare stake. Veteran Captured Many. Stakes Turbine could wish there were some sort of equine social security. The other day this 13-year-old veteran ran last in a sprint at Cumberland, in an effort to stage a comeback after six seasons in the stud. The son of Burning Star and Lucky Jean a few years ago was one of our leading handicap performers,-a faithful campaigner of the highest integrity. Though he now runs to be claimed for ,000, he won 24 races mostly stakes in a career of 111 starts in his more halcyon days. Among other things he captured the 6,700 Trenton Handicap at Garden State Park in 46, the 2,500 " All American Handicap at Atlantic City the same year, the 9,700 Havre de Grace Handicap in 47, the ,900 Spring Handicap at Gansett in 48, and the ,895 Fort Clair Handicap at Detroit in 49. As the story goes, Joseph Nechamkin of Randallstown picked up Turbine in a dispersal at Timonium not long ago for the princely sum of 00. It was the popular supposition that the horse had been purchased for his value as a sire". But he now has been returned to the races, at the halfers. The most newsworthy development of Delawares sport yesterday was the emergence of Willie Hartack as the leading rider of American, momentarily at least, with a total of 176 winners to date for the season. The dilettante skin fisherman rode four winners on the days program and as this is written he is -two up on Willie Shoemaker, who is serving a suspension and resumes riding at Hollywood Park on Saturday. One of Hartacks successes came while he was tooling Mrs. Rices Cerise Reine to an authoritative victory in the days feature, in which she ran six furlongs in 1:11, then worked on out to the mile in a stylish 1:39. She is to remain here for the "new" New Castle and the Delaware Handicap. There were only lour behind her in the Thursday sprint, neverthless the sporting Stanton club offered show wagering, and the pool went minus ,684.50, though the play was "up" for the day compared with the corresponding program a year ago. Leads in the Battle of the Willies Hartack is a dark haired, 23 years old native of Pennsylvania"; who now makes his home at Charles Town, in West Virginia, where he has a farm on which he boards horses. When he is not riding winners, or diving in. the Florida bayous somewhere, he is amusing himself whipping about the West Virginia hills in his Jaguar. He is the sort of rider for whom horses run cheerfully, and he has a penchant for being almost always strategically placed in the course of a contest. Though the rivalry between "Silent Shoe" and Hartack is undeniably fascinating, this observer cannot help thinking the contemporary, militant supervision of race riding has deprived these things of some of their former "sang froid." There was a time the competition was much more intense and hand to hand. For example, Joe Notter can recall that years ago he and Walter Miller were engaged in a tussle for preeminence. They were fast friends out of the saddle and one night joined one another in a beautiful dinner at a fashionable Brooklyn restaurant. The next afternoon Millers mount put Notter through the fence and he landed In a hospital. His first vision that evening was Miljer, bearing flowers and a bottle of champagne.
