Urchins in Silk

For a jockey to score a "triple"--ride three winners in an afternoon--is not unusual. Nonetheless, even to jockeys as able as young Hank Mills, it is gratifying. Hank Mills had particularly good reason to feel pleased about his triple with The Heathen, Euclid and Bodkin in the closing week of the Jamaica. L. I. race meeting last week. It was his second triple of the meeting; it put him back in the running for riding honors at the course; and it substantiated his claim to being, at 17, the leading U. S. jockey of the year.

Born in Grand Junction, Colo, of a racetrack family--his father and an older brother were jockeys--Hank Mills became famed suddenly in Miami last winter when he rode 27 winners in 16 days. Trainer James Fitzsimmons of the Wheatley Stables, owned by Secretary of the Treasury Ogden Livingston Mills (no kin to Jockey Mills) and his sister, Mrs. Henry Carnegie Phipps, quickly bought Hank Mills's contract for $7,500. This year, Jockey Mills has had 779 mounts, 169 winners, 141 seconds.* He won the Brooklyn and Brookdale Handicaps with Blenheim, the Shevlin Stakes on Faireno. the Potomac Handicap with Dark Secret. Jockeys seldom worry about their weight until they are 20 or more. Small, pink-faced Hank Mills gained 8 Ib. this year, now weighs 98. He has broad shoulders and long strong arms. Famed for bringing in outsiders--as he did with Dark Secret--he usually tries to get in front at the start and stay there. He enjoys mocking rival jockeys as he passes them in a race. He has a joint bank account with his 11-year-old sister in which he deposits most of the $35 a month and 10% of prizes which he gets from the Wheatley Stables. He speaks in a high squeaky voice, likes riding on merry-go-rounds.

Jockey Mills's closest rival this season has been a sloe-eyed Italian urchin, one year younger and six pounds lighter. He, Jockey Sylvio Coucci of New York, had a success at Agua Caliente a year ago. The Greentree Stables, owned by Mrs. Payne Whitney, bought Jockey Coucci's contract from the Coburn Brothers (John and George), onetime racehorse owning partners of Jack Dempsey. His record with 835 mounts this year has been 161 winners, 143 seconds. He has won only twelve important stakes this season, to Mills's 18, but Coucci's twelve were worth more money, $166,095 to $86,017. He won the American Derby and the Arlington Park Classic, both on Morton L. Schwartz's Gusto, and the Spinaway Stakes with Easy Day. Jockey Coucci, more than Mills, is noted for spectacular finishes. Sometimes they are too spectacular, like one last fortnight which caused Laurel, Md. officials to suspend him for "taking a tow"--grabbing the saddlecloth of a horse going past him. Last week Jockey Coucci was reinstated. He quickly set about improving his percentage of winners--19 for the season to Mills's 22--by bringing Mrs. Isabelle Dodge Sloan's Snap Back home for a $1,000 purse at Laurel.

For gentleman riders, last week was disastrous. At Media, Pa., at the fall meeting of the Rose Tree Hunt Club, Mrs. Geraldyn Redmond's Fairbanks II, ridden by Carroll K. Bassett, fell at a brush jump and broke his neck. Three days later at the same jump, the same thing happened to Kendal Boy, owned by Fairfield Osborn Jr., ridden by Stanley Flagg IV.

Near Red Bank, N. J., on the estate of Amory L. Haskell, Temple Gwathmey, 23-year-old gentleman rider and socialite, was thrown by his horse Brown Ruler in the Holmdel Steeplechase. Rushed to a hos pital, he soon died of a broken neck.

*In his best year (1923) Earl Sande, most famed U. S. jockey, had 430 mounts, 122 winners, 89 seconds.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.