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River Downs By W. A. Cruse : ,000 Handicap to Top July 4 Program Good Crop of Two-Year-Olds at Meeting Play Up 18 Pet; Attendance Down 10 Pet. RIVER DOWNS, Cincinnati, Ohio, June 21. This Saturdays program at River Downs will be featured by the Buckeye Handicap, a ,500 event for three-year- olds and upward at six furlongs. President Leon A Slavin also announced today that the July 4 program will be headed by the Independence Day Handicap with a ,000 purse and over the mile and one-sixteenth distance. Slavin and racing secretary Lawrence Bogenschutz have been discussing th,e possibility of running some two-year-old features, with good sized purses as the current crop of juveniles performing at this meeting is the best seen in this area in many years. Peter R. Miller, director of public relations, dug through his voluminous files and records and came up with the figures for the aggregate attendance and handle during the first 21 days of this meeting. To date, there have been 111,074 fans on hand to wager ,284,191 per capita a shade better than 6, which is well above average for this plant. An interesting note to all this is the fact that in1954, there were 123,085 people to pass through the turnstiles, against the lesser number this year showing a 10 per cent decrease in attendance. The handle, however, is 86,-453 greater, to show an 18 per cent increase. Newmarket Maid Has Lassie Engagement Doug Davis, Jr. will ship Newmarket Maid to Arlington Park for her engagement in the rich Lassie Stakes test. The juvenile miss by the illustrious Citation, will be matched with the best two-year-old fillies in the nation when she goes postward. She will, in all probability, be handled by jockey Jack Chestnut, who has ridden her in victories here. Chestnut will be on familiar ground at that course having ridden in many of the stakes there in the past. - Joe Moran, who served as one of the outriders at this meeting in. the past years, is now in charge of taking the horses back to the retention barn and is still active on the track on his pony. Joe was born in-Virginia City, Nevada, and the affable horseman admits to being 64-years-old. Though his appearance belies that age, his memory attests it in facts. He first came to the track in the employ of H. D. "Curly" Brown as a jockey. The latter is remembered by most people as the man who built many a race track, including Arlington Park, in Chicago, and Oriental Park in Cuba. It was in 1917 that Joe hung up his tack and took up his duties as an outrider and performed those duties at such tracks as Oaklawn, Latonia, Arlington and Churchill Downs. He led many a Kentucky Derby field to the post at the latter course and readily admits to an extremely soft spot in his heart for those years. With Moran the conversation naturally got around to the comparison of horses. In the big stakes, Twenty Grand and Boot to Boot, stand out in his mind as the classic horses of the years gone by. The comparison of horses campaigning today naturally brought up Swaps and Nashua. Joe believes that Swaps is his choice by far and that as everyone has seen by his recent races on the West Coast he will go on to be as great as Man o War, as the colt can run as fast in the mud as he can on a fast track. The conversation with this well-seasoned member of the racing fraternity was an enlightening as well as interesting one and with 38 years of Joes keen powers of observation we wouldnt want to say that he is wrong. Mills Rides First Race of Career James Mills, a 19-year-old lad from Lexington, Ky., rode the first race of his career here this afternoon while aboard A. W. Govers E Z Eye. The boy is well schooled in the fact that Frank Clelland had him under his wing for several years before relinquishing his contract to Ken Burkhardt, who now holds the lightweights future. . . . Jockey Willie Curtin was forced to cancel his mounts for today. It seems that the Softball team played some rather tough opponents and Willie reportedly wrenched his knee while attempting to grab hold of a grounder. . . . The reports are that the Cincinnati Sparkettes, the girls softball team, gave the riders a good run for their money but the score became so high in the girls favor that an ad-ding machine was needed. Racing secretary Larry Bogenschutz released his third edition of the condition book. This will cover the racing of the period from June 22 through July 4, inclusive. . . . W. J. Waldens Circus Clown, a recent winner here, has an imposing past. The Tiger gelding has gone with some of the best handicap and stakes performers during the past six seasons. He was the winner of the Pageant Handicap, the Philadelphia Handicap and the Select Stakes in 1948, beating such able handicap horses as Turbine and Natchez. The latter is the sire of Bobby Brocato, a consistent stakes horse. . . . Leon A. Slavin can now be called "Colonel." The honor was bestowed on him during the Kentucky Day festivities here last Wednesday. Those who participated in the ceremonies were Wathen Knebelkamp, chairman of the Kentucky State Racing Commission; Ben Adams, commissioner of agriculture of that state and Paul Stappleton, circuit judge from Fort Thomas, Ky.
