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Skysweeper Nose Delaware Victor Takes Imp Purse at Direct Expense of Roman Fan; Post Daily Double on ,694.20 By CHARLES IIATTON DELAWARE PARK,. Stanton, DeL, May 31. A crowd of 8,999 regulars, who responded to the dual attraction of an idyllic day in the country and a very bettable off-day card, saw Mrs. Alfred J. Giordanos Skysweeper record a nose victory in the featured mile and a sixteenth Imp Purse. With jockey Dave Gorman timing his move nicely, the five-year-old Eight Thirty gelding won his first brackets of the season at the direct expense of Eugene Constantin Jr.s Roman Fan, a close second choice to him in the betting. Third at another length back in this grass offering was Gee M. Cohens Chuck Thompson, while Witches Magic was a desultory fourth in a field of eight high-grade platers. Skysweeper paid .20 and his was one of a few popular successes during the afternoon. The Long Island-owned campaigner had been-withdrawn from yesterdays Brandy-wine to await this less exacting race, and the wisdom of this maneuver was reflected in the fact he required 1:44 to get the distance in the same hard going in which Akbar Khan raced toa new . record of 1:42 in the stakes. He carried 113 pounds, including a. pound overweight, and was straight as the proverbial yard of pump water at the end. 28 Hold Lucky Combination The days sport also brought an enviable Daily Double return of ",694.20, in which only 23 of the crowd had found the touchstone and backed the winning combination of Bunch-of-News in the first and Deebol in the second. The latter paid 22 in the regular pooling and was ridden by apprentice Arthur Chambers, an 18-year-old from Brooklyn connected with Don Ross Brandywine Stable who was riding only his 10th mount. He had won with his first, last month at Jamaica, when Summer Song carried him into the winners circle. The Imp was the first of 10 purses to be decided during the meeting named in honor of one or another o"The 10 Greatest Race Mares" in the Delaware Park poll. Imp was the champion of her sex in the late Gay Nineties, winning 62 of 171 starts and 0,-119, long before the advent of "the fifty-cent dollar." Paradoxically, none of the eight entrants in the race today was a filly or mare. The Imp did not really begin to be a horse race until the field left the backstretch and were negotiating the turn for home. Up to that point in the proceedings, Old Glendale had been sailing along more or less at his leisure, leading by a casual Continued on Page Fifty-Two Skysweeper Defeats Roman Fan by Nose at Delaware Continued from Page Nine length, with Witches Magic and Midway Point prompting him most closely. Skysweeper and Roman Fan were following, these like shadows, never too. far out of it to lodge their bids. This they did once Midway Point and Witches Magic ran out of oxygen turning for home. Old Glen-dale straightened up still in front as they entered the home lane, but he was beginning to falter. Skysweeper charged down the outside and to the front at about the sixteenth marker and it appeared he would be a decisive winner. But by this time Culmone, who had found himself confronted with a wall of horses, surged up on the outside of the Giordano gelding with Roman Fan and he just missed in a desperate finish.
