Arlington Inferno

Most race track barns are tinder dry. The one housing Elizabeth Arden Graham's horses at Arlington Park, near Chicago, was no exception. Flames, from a fire caused by an unwatched electric heater, licked over the loose straw bedding and lapped at wooden partitions. A Negro groom threw a single bucket of water, saw that it was futile and made a beeline to save the horses.

First out of the inferno was squealing, kicking Beaugay, the fleetest two-year-old filly of the 1945 season. Somebody held her fast. Stable boys led out other terrified thoroughbreds; agonized screams came from horses still in the blaze. In 20 minutes, the worst fire in horse-racing history was over. The toll: 23 horses valued at about $400,000. Only six were saved.

The heavy toll was largely caused by the horse's civilized stupidity. Five of the Arden racers which had been led to safety broke loose, ran back into the blazing barn and perished. After generations of being groomed and cared for by man, horses feel that their stalls are the best and safest place in an emergency. They don't know what fire is and have little or no wild instinct left to warn them against it.*

*"You never see a deer get burned in a forest fire," commented Frank (Bring 'Em Back Alive) Buck, who thinks the horse is pretty dumb anyhow. He rates the intellectuals of animaldom as 1) elephants, 2) anthropoid apes, 3) dogs.

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