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BILL CORUM The Churchill Downs president and his mother who will witness todays 83rd Kentucky Derby in company with her son r Derby and Churchill of Future Told Have Definite Goal for Each President Corum Declares Aim to Strengthen National Aspects of Race Tradition Always Will Be Retained RetainedBy By OSCAR OTIS OTISCHURCHILL CHURCHILL DOWNS Louisville Ky May 3 There is a Kentucky Derby of the future and a Churchill Downs of the fu ¬ ture President Bill Corum reveals on the eye of his eighth year as president of this historic Louisville racecourse racecourseDont Dont get the idea that we are toying with the idea of creating a socalled dream track explains Corum but we do have a definite goal for both the Derby and the physical plant itself We will attain that goal step by step year by year but attain it we will willAs As for the Derby itself our efforts will be directed toward strengthening its na ¬ tional aspects Our ideal Derby at the moment is one in which leading three yearolds from east west north and south meet on a common ground preferably for the first time We hope to expand our competition to include the best of the Ca ¬ nadian breds and even Europe is not be ¬ yond our grasp Perhaps some day most every part of the world will be repre ¬ sentedAirplane sented Airplane Changing Things ThingsThis This is not as impossible as it might eeem for the plane is changing the whole outlook of the Derby for people as well as horses Louisville is centrally located in America and with the faster planes is but minutes or at most a few hours away from any point in the United States and Can ¬ ada More planes and faster planes will make it even more convenient convenientAt At the same time Louisville is rapidly Bolving its socalled housing problems New industries have spurred the building of mo ¬ tels downtown hotels plan enlargements theres a new motel going up at the airport and J Graham Brown already has made three additions to his country motel on the outskirts of the city limits The nous ing situation definitely has improved since I first came here as president only eight years ago And it will continue to im ¬ prove proveA A projection taken from letters re received containing checks not just re ¬ quests indicates that we could race the Derby before 200000 people if we had the accommodations We will continue to take steps to accommodate more folks each year although number one on our building priority at the moment is more escalators and a new paddock We want a paddock that will enable more people to see the horses being saddled saddledNevertherless Nevertherless whatever we do in the way of change it will be so accomplished that Churchill will never lose its tradi ¬ tional look or appearance of being old It Is old and that is part of its great charm Thats why I say that while we wall ex ¬ pand and make it extremely comfortable ut will never be a new track in the sense of the dream course in New York or a modernistic plant like Hollywood Park It will forever remain Churchill Downs DownsWe We are completely satisfied with the track itself the footing over which the Derby is raced I dont know the answer but somehow Tom Young our track su ¬ perintendent has managed to come up with a strip that is in many ways miracu ¬ lous Maybe it is because he doesnt an ¬ noy it with too much machinery or maybe it is because he DOESNT plant soybeans in the off season but whatever the reason the man has the right com ¬ bination and dont forget the path over which this 1957 Derby winner will race is pretty much the same track over which the first JDerby was contested contestedThose Those are Corums views on the eve of this 82d Derby Now something about the man himself Corum who was given the post held by the late Col Matt J Winn who transformed the Derby from a somewhat obscure race into the blue ribband of the American turf is consid I erate of every Derby visitor He knows full well that the socalled average man is the backbone of the Derby yet also realizes that the big names of America both in and out of the sports world lend the race a prestige that is astonishingly high Therefore he takes great pains to see that senators congressmen cabinet officials and state governors are made comfortable and happy happyRegrets Regrets Truman Had to Cancel Plans PlansHis His one big regret as president of Churchill Downs is that racing in Amer ¬ ica has not achieved the acceptance it has received in England where the rulers are pillars of the sport but hes doing all he can through the Derby to popularize racing with all America AmericaCorum Corum will always regret that President Harry Truman after having tentatively accepted his invitation to be an honored guest at the Derby had to cancel it at the last minute because of a national emer ¬ gency created by the steel strike strikeHis His first consideration after being named president was to ponder the many traditions created by Col Winn He de ¬ cided that these traditions all of them pleasant many of them mellow should be maintained but that new ideas also should be adopted in keeping with the times timesHis His first official act was to locate an unbroken set of silver julep cups en ¬ graved with the name of every Derby winner since Aristides and put them on display It was decreed that only the owner of th Derby winner could sip from these cups with one important proviso after the race the owner could invite his friends to toast the winner from the an ¬ cient silver silverHis His second official act was to convert the old 21 room into the Col Matt Winn room an enclosure filled with relics and mementos of the great moments of the past all on display under a lifesized oil painting of the Colonel himself himselfCorums Corums background is interesting in ¬ deed He was an honor student and a crack athlete showing considerable prom ¬ ise on the sandlots as a ballplayer His friends insist he cquld have made a ca ¬ reer in big league ball had he so elected electedHe He enlisted as a private in World War I and emerged as a major Upon leav ¬ ing the service he enrolled in Columbias School of Journalism and after being graduated was employed by the New York Times He gravitated quite naturally to sports and his articles unsigned were so vivid and well written that Arthur Bris ¬ bane of the Hearst organization sought him out and hired him himHe He has been with Hearst as a column ¬ istreporter for some 35 years He cov ¬ ered his first Derby in the year of Zev and became a close friend of Col Winns He learned the Colonels philosophy and planning for the Derby an indoctrination that has stood him well in his role as track president presidentIt It was Bill Corum who as a writer coined the term The Run for the Roses
