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On the Wire By Hugh J. McGuke Balmorals Chicagoan Lures Big Field Mile Event Is Popular With Trainers Dickersons Long Tenure at Arlington WASHINGTON PARK, Homewood, 111., June 17. The bulky field of 24 three -year-olds who were named for the one-mile Chicagoan, final feature of the Bal moral meeting, gives rise, to musing on the keen foresight in programming such a race and the outlook of the three-year-old di-. vision in general. The Chicagoan is endowed with a prize of 0,000 and is to have its first running, but the presence of so many top contenders proves its popularity and it is not beyond reason that this race could in time become one of the recognized classics of the sport. Nothing but time will mellow a race into traditional importance, but classics must start from somewhere and it could well be that those who witness this first running of the Chicagoan will long remember it. Every year in which outstanding three-year-olds appear also brings out a number of prominent sophomores of whom later it is said that they were unfortunate enough to have been born in the same year as the champions. These are the good, but not great horses, who might have been more highly regarded but for the accident of untimely birth". True too, there have been years of which it is said that the champion "didnt beat anything" but this, we think, is an undeserved aspersion on the good game horse who falls just a trifle short of top ranking and who is put into the position of receiving disparagement that is hot even heaped upon the lowliest plater. .The big field in the Chicagoan is evidence that among men who know horses best, the trainers, high opinions are held for quite a number of the age division and this is only one sector of the nations racing front. Several Have Accounted for Stakes "While the Chicagoan may serve to separate some of the men -from the boys in the local sophomore colony, it must be remembered that a horse in this age division has every license to .improve, and trainers will be slow to accept mediocrity in their charges so early in the season. Many of the rivals in the Chicagoan have succeeded in winning important stakes at various tracks throughout the country, and while the luster surrounding Swaps and Nashua may detract from the prominence of others in the age division, this group embraces many fine animals who should do much to elevate the. racing programs of the future. As stakes go, the Chicagoan was of necessity hastily arranged for the Balmoral meeting, but the response has been terrific. .Despite horrendous weather this meeting has proved that spring racing here can be increasingly important and the Chicagoan should move along in prestige with each renewal. "When Arlington Park picks up the racing baton from Balmoral on Monday for the second leg of Chicagos three-track co-ordinated program, the races will again be started by the man who has held this post since the inaugural meeting in 1927. This is Roy "Boots" Dickerson, the venerable gentleman from Jackson, Ky., who shares with good wine the quality of improving with age. "Boots" is as much a fixture at Arlington as the Classic or the Futurity, and as the track opens its 29th season so does Dickerson. After gaining recognition under the late Mars Cassidy, for whom he often substituted, Dickerson was the only candidate considered for the starters job when Arlington got under way and he has handled "the latch" here ever since that time. Veteran Starter Is a Consistent Golfer Dickerson, now 65, looks and acts like a well-conditioned athlete, and actually he is. After schooling hours in the morning, if time permits, he hurries to the golf course and when he shoots out of the low 80s its a bad day for him on the links. Dickersons patience while schooling horses is well established, and while he does, not lose that attribute in the afternoon, he has adopted a method of getting fast starts and is noted for this wherever jockeys ride under him. Through long experience Dickerson has found that there is less" likelihood of horses finding themselves unprepared if the field is started immediately after the last horse is "loaded" into the starting gate rather than wait for them to settle down only to find that several horses, in turn or simultaneously, decide to become unruly. Jockeys know or learn quickly what to expect and they are on their toes from the instant they enter the starting gate. A check of elapsed time at the starting gate probably would find Dickersons average lower than that of any other starter. Dickerson was born to racing and in some measure to Arlington Park. His father, Luther Dickerson, trained Woodson, when that colt ran second to High Ball in the 1904 American Derby. That was at old Washington Park when it was in the city of Chicago and it was the last time the Derby was run at the old - site. "Boots" worked for his father in the barns for many years before branching out as a trainer in his own right, a profession he followed for 15 years before joining the staff of Mars Cassidy,
