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Weighing In By Evan Shipman -r . Paper Tiger Gets Nod in Three-Ply Finish Reminds Veterans of His Sire, Stymie Phil Drake Smashes Record in Grand Prix AQUEDUCT, L. I., N. Y., June 27. Confounding us with our faintly disparaging remarks about "the second team," Saturdays renewal of the nine-furlong Edgemere Handicap turned out as smart an exhibition as even the most blase racegoer could have asked for. If pulses were riot quickened by the frantic finish in which the favored Greentree gelding, Straight Face, snatched a heads advantage over the pace-setting Red Hannigan and then was himself caught by the fast-closing Paper Tiger to drop the decision by a head, those -pulses just do not respond to thoroughbred determination. Summing up, it was " far and away the best effort ever shown by either the successful Stymie colt, Paper Tiger, or the handsome chestnut Heliopolis four-year-old, Red Hannigan, and while it cannot be" called Straight Faces top effort his Dixie and Suburban last year, together with his" fine second to Native Dancer in the Metropolitan representing the Count Fleet five-year-old at his peak this Edgemere certainly gained distinction by his presence in the small field. Straight Face, a campaigner with woefully weak underpinning, not only did himself vast credit on the week end, but earned high praise for trainers John Gaver and George Pool, whose problems in bringing their charge up safely to such an engagement cannot be underestimated. With his burden of 123 pounds, nine more than were carried by the winner and seven above Red Hannigans assignment, Straight Face must be considered the real hero of the occasion. Under Ted Atkinsons skillful rating and strong urging, the rakish, angular bay all but got there, and if Paper Tiger nailed him "right on the money," it was thanks to one of little Conn McCrearys most nerve-tingling" finishes. Red Hannigan Sets Moderate Pace Red Hannigan, prompted by the lightly weighted Lychnus, set a very moderate pace in the Edgemere, while McCreary trailed with Paper Tiger and Atkinson kept .Straight; Face some, four or five lengths off the leader. The first three-quarters required 1:12, assurance that everybody had plenty in reserye for the drive and, sure enough, that drive was a ding-dong affair from the top of the long Aqueduct stretch. The fourth quarter, Red Hannigan still in full command, was timed in :24. To all intents and purposes, here was your horse race, and it was, of course, from the three-eighths to the furlong pole. Still leading at the latter point, Red Hannigan was far from done, but Straight Face was now on almost equal terms, while on the outside Paper Tiger now joined the fray to make it a three-ply finish. Under the most strenuous urging, not one of the trio faltered, but Paper Tiger had the nod where it counted, his weight advantage tilting the scales ever so slightly in his favor. This is no Stymie perhaps, but his Edgemere finish did recall the old horse, reminding many of us of the partiality Stymie always showed for this peculiar strip. News that Madame Suzy Volterras Epsom Derby winner, Phil Drake, has also annexed the Grand Prix de Paris refutes those returned travelers who reported this to have been a"poor year" for the English classic, only a select, few having achieved this double since Gladiateur first did it for the Count de Lagrange back in the 1850s. My Love, bred by Madame Volterras late husband, Leon Volterra, but raced in England in . the Aga Khans colors, although Volterra retained a half interest, was the last to turn the trick, and we have always understood that My Love was a very good colt, indeed. Aside from Gladiateur, always referred , to by the French as. "the avenger of Waterloo," the most famous three-year-old to win both "the blue ribband of the turf" at Epsom and the subsequent even more exacting fixture at Longchamp was Spearmint, a son of the Australian Carbine, whose place in the pedigree of the great Teddy makes him an ancestor of both Phil Drake and all of Teddys numerous tribe on this side of the Atlantic. Recalls 1926 Running at Longchamp Not only did this Teddy line colt, Phil Drake, win yesterdays great French race, but he did so in time three seconds faster than the record for the mile and seven-eighths, set back in 1926 by the late James Hennesseys fantastic outsider, Take My Tip. We were, at -Longchamp to see My Tip score his head victory over the gray Biribi, Bois Josselyn and the big field. That record-smashing race was one of the most dramatic in all our experience, made so by the tactics of the Italian invaders, Apelle and Cranach. This pair dashed off to a long lead- in the early stages of that Grand Prix, so commanding a lead that when they reached the top of rise before curving into the stretch, they must have had a 30- or 40-length advantage. Totally winded by these exertions, Apelle and . Cranach finished well out of the money as "Pastor" Jack Jennings drove Take My Tip to his narrow score over Domingo Tortorello and Biribi. The striking gray colt, Biribi, was a great favorite with the French racing public. It was his sad fate, however, to lose his three most important spring engagements the French Derby, or Prix de Jockey Club; the Grand Prix and the Prix du President at Saint Cloud each by the margin of a head, circumstances for which the South American jockey, Torterello, received the blame.
