Spitfire Derby

War has nearly put a stop to golf tournaments in England, has cut down greyhound races to one meet instead of three a week; pigs and potatoes flourish on Wimbledon's famed tennis courts. But, come hell or Hitler, Englishmen still refuse to give up cricket and the Derby.

Last week, cricket matches were going full blast on the hallowed grounds at Lord's--the Marylebone Club playing teams from the Army, R.A.F., the Fire Brigade, etc. And at Newmarket, 70 miles from London, 50,000 Britons, disregarding the Government's "stay put" order, swarmed together for the second wartime running of the classic Derby--normally held at Epsom Downs, nearer London.

Derby-goers missed Epsom's flower-decked grandstands, the grey-toppered swells, fortunetelling gypsies and wigwagging ticktack men (scouts for bookies). But nothing was missing in the race itself. Favorite in the field of 21 three-year-olds was the Duke of Westminster's Lambert Simnel, winner of last spring's Two Thousand Guineas. Sentimental favorite was Fairy Prince, owned by Lieut. F. T. Williams, a war prisoner somewhere in Germany.

When the front runners thundered over the hill into the homestretch (Newmarket's course is dog-legged, not oval, up-&-down, not flat), railbirds saw no Lambert Simnel, no Fairy Prince. In front was Owen Tudor, a belittled 25-to-1 shot, owned by Mrs. Macdonald-Buchanan. Coming from behind, the bay son of the great Hyperion (1933 Derby winner) had zoomed past the field like a Spitfire, finished a length and a half ahead of Morogoro, owned by the Maharani Saheb of Kolhapur.

Owen Tudor's time for the 1 1/2 miles: 2 min. 33 sec., four-fifths of a second faster than the established Derby record. But because it was made at Newmarket instead of Epsom Downs (a horseshoe course), Owen Tudor's time will not be listed as a Derby record.

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