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Judges Stand By Charles Hatton Reunion at Ancient Churchill Downs Goose, Young, Hugenberg Old Timers Blue Delights Third Ky/Oaks Winner CHURCHILL DOWNS, Louisville, Ky., May 5.— One of the pleasures of coming back to the Downs each May is to renew our bid acquaintances with various of the staff and the horsemen. , When we flew in here yesterday | morning the, first we saw was | Roscoe Goose, of longshot Done-rail fame. There was a time sev- i eral decades ago when Goose and his brother Ganz were among the best jockeys in the business. Later on he trained a brilliant if ill-fated colt called Capt. Hal, who was owned by a firm of Louisville tobacconists and staged some thrilling stretch battles with King Nadi. Each year about Derby time Roscoe tools his car about the stable area, delivering the pseudo legman to various of the eligibles camp. He delights in this and in the furtherance of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Breeders Association annual gatherings, where the trainers of the Derby horses go into an isolation booth at J. Graham Browns hotel to be interviewed about their chances. Betimes he has talent scouted horses for Henry Knight and "Futurity John" Marsch. Goose was sort of sponsored by the late great editor Marse Henry Watterson, for whom the flourishing Louisville hotel is named, and who was our first newspaper employer. Wattersons resounding editorials made the Courier Journal the foremost paper in the country for a number of years. He was an opinionated man but of high principle, absolutely unshakable in his political convictions, and his minions in the composing room trembled when he came bursting out of his office with a new idea. There incidentally was only one compositor who could read his copy, which was written in a wavy kind of longhand. Gooses family lived near Watterson and it was because of Roscoes small stature that he suggested a riding career for him. Doing a Big Job for Forty-Five Years Another old timer here at Churchill Downs is that affable Yorkshireman Tom Young, who is the track superintendent. He is the man responsible for all those lovely red and yellow tulips the crowds have been photographing the last several days, and for the condition of the racing. strip. Young has been a familiar figure on the Churchill Downs scene for 45 years. Much of the remodelling of the track in that time has ,been under his personal direction and the stands now can accommodate about three times the number of patrons they did when first he came here. Young has a theory that no track in which one cannot garden is worthy of the name and each two years he adds two inches of topsoil to it. He keeps his own compost, an amalgam of humus, sand and loam and places about 750 yards of this soil on the racing surface before it is covered with straw.- It is his object to maintain a two-inch cushion of live soil. Still another fixture here at the Downs is little Tommy Oliphant. He has been the paddock judge here for many years and has functioned in various other official capacities at tracks about Kentucky. Years ago Oliphant was a jockey. He rode in the American Derby which Highball won, finishing, fortunately, on a horse called Bill Curtis, who was cut down in the race. In addition, to being a most conscientious official, Oliphant was for some years an expert clocker. Nobody has a surer eye for a horse. Then there is executive vice-president and general manager Stanley Hugen- . berg. He has been here for as long as we can remember and before that was one of Maurice Galvins staff at dismantled Latonia. Hugenberg has been at Churchill Downs ever since the Covington track closed. We have heard it said of him that nobody has a better grasp of the executive or managerial aspect of racing. At his fingertips are myriad statistics relevant to the comparative proportions of handle to purses, things like that. And like the late Col. Matt Winn he has an acute awareness of the influence of racing dates on tracks success or failure. For example, the Downs fall meetings have rarely been very profitable, but its spring dates, with the Derby decided the first Saturday in May are auspicious. It is the date as much as anything else which permits the Derby to continue its prestige across the years. A Princess Outshines the-Queen The Kentucky Oaks developed as pretty a finish as . one is likely to see in many weeks, with Calumets Princess Turia responding courageously to Willie Har-tacks handling in the last yards to repel Claibornes Doubledogdare by the shortest of nose margins. There was honor enough for both the winner and runner-up, as "Bull" Hancocks filly had 121 pounds and was attempting to give her rival five. Steve Brooks as usual rode the daughter of Double Jay, who was voted the champion of her age and sex division last season and performs as if she is going to be a factor in other stakes at the longer distances. Certainly there was no quit in her Friday. As you may or may not have noticed the winner is by Heliopolis out of Blue Delight and she is thus a half-sister to Real Dejight, and Bub-bley, who won Oaks renewals for Calumet several years ago. Royal Lark is one of our fastest three-year-old fillies as far as she goes and she set a lively pace to the final turn in the Oaks but then tired under her 121 pounds.
