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JUDGES STAND By Charles Hatton Run for Hie Roses Still Is Wide Open Race Derby Aids Racing Throughout United States Winn Insisted on Mile and Quarter Distance Juliets Nurse Looms Stout Debutante Choice CHURCHILL DOWNS, Louisville. Ky., May 5. Derby selections this year properly belong in the department of utter confusion, for one hears some quite reasonable reasons for picking six or eight of the field. Perhaps there will be a dead-heat, though none has been called in seventy-five Derbys, and it might be a bit embarrassing, for there is only one gold trophy and the winner3 circle hardly is large enough to accommodate two hot horses simultaneously. We suppose Your Host will be the favorite, particularly if the track is dry, but it still is a remarkably open race. If anybody cares to know, the notion here is that Middleground is the one to beat in such a contest. For one thing, he doesnt have to be in any traffic jams. Horses sometimes win the Derby all tne way, or come from somewhere out on central Avenue the last quarter, but they have to be especially good or especially lucky. Hill Prince is a tough horse, particularly in the mud, and he figures to get some of the 00,000 on any sort of track. None of the Derby colts has come up to his engagement in better fettle than has the Blue Grass winner, Mr. Trouble, and he strikes us as the kind to rectify any mistakes. It is easily the most interesting Derby in years, and there is such an intense element of intersectional rivalry that it may attract the largest crowd that has ever attended a horse race in America. Mr. Derby sees "about 120,000" as a possibility in fair weather. m, One occasionally sees the Derby described in print m a sort of three-ring: circus, but its result will be flashed around the world, and more people will come from greater distances to see it than any other turf event on thi* continent. For that matter, we understand that th« Epsom, original of all the Derbys, is more informal than top hat and tails. Royal Ascot caters to the carriage trade, but Derby Day at Newmarket is a national racing holiday, and it is appropriate that the Kentucky Derby is in the best tradition of the occasion. This observer is inclined to agree with BUI Coram that the Derbys importance doesnt end with the race. Eaclf year it interests many more of the American public in the turf sport. Not only from among those who go racing for the first time on Derby Day, but in distant cities, where the classic is publicized in the press and on the air. In this way the Derby aids racing generally. A number of clubs benefit through the "Previews," others through the appearance of the Derby winner in their stakes later in the season. The late Col. Matt J. Winn always felt that a good part of the Derbys appeal as a contest is its mile and a quarter route. "I have been asked to reduce it to a mile and an eighth," he once told us, "but we made one concession when it was cut from a mile and a half to a mile and a quarter. This distance is a bit too far for the sprinters and too short for the plodders. 1 think it is a test of both speed and stamina, and I propose to keep it that way." It seems to us that the Derby also is a better show .at a mile and a quarter, for the stands here extend the full length of the stretch, and by breaking at the quarter pole, the field runs past the entire stadium twice. A recurrent controversy has been wagered unimportantly concerning the true Derby distance. So far as concerns the "Triple Crown" events we think that their dates beggar the question. Who can be sanguine that 12 furlongs the first week in June really is more exacting than 10 furlongs the first Saturday in May. We do know that it takes intelligent breeding and training and a lot of horse just to qualify for a place in the fields for any of these events. The Downs club wiU offer the Debutante Stakes on the Derby Day card for the first time within our memory. This is Louisvilles only two-year-old filly stake, and it was introduced as long ago as 1895. Such as Bit O White, Anita Peabody, Alcibiades, Whirlabout, Blue Grass and Bewitch have won recent renewals, and its going to take a runner to win it this week-end if J. Graham Brown starts his nimble filly, Juliets Nurse. She is the most precocious of those her age and sex that have been started at ,v this point in the season here in the Middle West. The less familiar fillies include some that have shown a great deal of promise, however. We are thinking of such as C. V. Whitneys Swanky and Scoreless, Circle Ms Miss Thrill and A. B. Hancock, Jr.s, Escondida. It will be surprising if the Derby crowd doesnt make Juliets Nurse an odds-on choice. Turf ana: Webb Everett and Johnny Maluvius are here from the West Coast, and the former declares, "Your Host will win the Derby if only he goes a mile and a quarter.". . .Colonel Winn had a set of 13 julep cups, engraved with the names of his favorite Derby winners. Exterminator, Regret and Black Gold are among them. . .Some Douglas Park soil is said to have been worked into the Downs surface. . . Hill Prince works in a martingale. . .Russell Sweeney, in direct charge of Derby accommodations, weighs in a bit lighter than he did in January. . .Winston Churchill now is a thoroughbred breeder, having recently purchased the broodmare, Poetic. . .Admires the Blandford line through Bahr am. . .Racing and breeding interests are not involved in Senator Capeharts activities.
