Known and Unknown

Epsom. In grey felt topper and morning coat, King George VI soberly entered the Royal Box. Queen Elizabeth, appearing in powder blue, greeted Queen Mary with a kiss on both cheeks. Behind steeped the Dukes & Duchesses of Gloucester and Kent, the Princess Royal and the Earl of Harewood, and a set of silk-toppered plainclothesmen. From far & near burst a crescendo of cheers from some 250,000 throats. Thus heralded was George VI's first arrival at Epsom Downs as King, to view the 157-year-old racing classic founded by the 12th Earl of Derby.

Most excited betters had put their money on Perifox (son of Gallant Fox), which William Woodward hoped would prove the second U. S.-bred horse to win the Derby, or Lord Astor's Cash Book or the French colt Le Ksar. Still confident was the round, brown Aga Khan, spiritual leader of 60,000,000 Moslems, that this year his one entry would outrun the pack to give him three Derby victories in a row. Queen Elizabeth, however, bet -L-1 on Mid-Day Sun, quoted at 100-to-7. Mid-Day Sun's best previous performance had been to place third at Newmarket this year in the Two Thousand Guineas race, which Le Ksar won.

Epsom Downs is not a flat mile-and-a-half but a tricky course which first runs uphill, drops down around a sharp turn, rises again at the finish. Coming into the stretch, Goya II forged in front as Perifox and the Aga Khan's Le Grand Duc moved up to challenge. Goya II soon faltered and Jockey Michael Beary, who had run Mid-Day Sun to the outside to escape the friction at the turn, pushed his steed fresh down the sun-baked stretch, streaked up to a clean length's lead. Mid-Day Sun held fast to the finish--for a slow 2 min. 37 3/5 sec.--with Sandsprite and Le Grand Duc second and third.

The Queen's bet on this comparative outsider had been based on more than a hunch. She had sentimentally hoped that victory would go to a woman owner for the first time in Derby history.* Mid-Day Sun is one of the two horses in the Hampshire stables of Mrs. Lettice Mary Talbot Miller, a 28-year-old brunette who inherited a $2,500,000 silk fortune from her great-uncle. About the least-known of all British racing owners, she seldom frequents race tracks, never bets a shilling. Mid-Day Sun, bought two years ago with Mrs. Miller's mother putting up half the purchase money, is her fourth horse.

Never more baffled, racing experts were further confounded that Sandsprite, the place horse, a 100-to-1 shot, was also owned by a woman, Mrs. F. Nagle of Reading, who never bets either.

Belmont. Lunging like lightning from his extreme outside post position and dashing to the first turn well in front, Samuel D. Riddle's War Admiral shot out four lengths ahead at Belmont Park, L. I. last week to coast home 1937's indisputable champion U. S. 3-year-old. War Admiral thus became the fourth horse ever to triple in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes, succeeding the illustrious Sir Barton (1919), Gallant Fox (1930), Omaha (1935). Sensation of the race, unnoticed till after the finish, was the fact that he ran his mile-and-a-half in record time with a torn forefoot. Jockey Charley Kurtsinger said that War Admiral had stumbled at the break, grabbed himself, shearing off a piece of his heel "almost as big as a half-dollar." Had he been pressed, the injured colt might have smashed the U. S. record for the Derby distance. The race netted Owner Riddle $38,020, brought War Admiral's total 1937 earnings to $144,620. Second trailed Sceneshifter, trained by Earl Sande, and third, ten lengths behind, was Vamoose, the long shot. Next to last lagged Pompoon, place horse in both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.

Long ailing, Sam Riddle heard the Kentucky Derby on the radio, never saw War Admiral run as a three-year-old until the Preakness. At Belmont he risked the crush to descend from the roof of the stand to lead in his champion. But Trainer George Conway took the lead chain lest War Admiral prove too obstreperous for his feeble owner. A Philadelphia turfman for half a century, Sam Riddle proudly agreed that War Admiral ranks as the greatest son of great Man o' War which he bought for $5,000.

*In 1918 Lady James Douglas' Gainsborough won the Wartime substitute Derby at Newmarket, but this is not ranked as a true Derby.

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