Longshot Parade

At six major race tracks across the nation, chalk-eaters (form players) were choking last weekend over a straight flush of longshots.

One of the few who thought Wisconsin Boy had a chance in Chicago's rich ($74,975) Arlington Futurity was Owner W. M. Peavey, a paper-mill operator from Ladysmith, Wis. His Wisconsin Boy romped home, paying $38 for $2. At Detroit, a longshot named Our Request ($23.60) galloped off with the Rose Leaves Stakes. In the Betsy Ross Stakes at Boston's Suffolk Downs, Growing Up ($30.20) surprised the connoisseurs. Colonel Mike, winner of the Lamplighter Handicap at Monmouth Park (N.J.), paid $21.60. In New York, there was a slight delay while the judges examined the photograph after the $58,400 Butler Handicap. Then those who had bet on Conniver got in line to collect their $35 for $2.

At Santa Anita, where the $136,600 Hollywood Gold Cup ("world's richest race") was run, it was a sweltering 96DEG as the field of eleven jogged to the post. Vulcan's Forge, the co-favorite, had taken a beating during a violent storm on his plane trip from the East; he had been thrown to the floor, and had banged his hock and thigh. When the race began, he got lost in the shuffle and was not heard from again.

Coming into the stretch, the leader drifted wide and a bay colt named Solidarity flashed to the front. In a grand stand box, slim, blonde Owner Bernice Goldstone let out a shriek. Two and a half years ago she and her father, Track Caterer Harry Curland, had attended an auction of Louis B. Mayer horses. Curland quit bidding on Solidarity at $20,000, but when his daughter said, "Daddy, I want that horse," he went to $21,000 and got him. By winning the Gold Cup (and equaling Seabiscuit's mile-and-a-quarter track record of 2:01 1/5), Solidarity added $100,000 to his earnings and paid his backers a generous $24.80 for $2.

The $100,000-guaranteed Gold Cup purse would probably be the last of the big bonanza races this season. With betting off everywhere, the trend was toward lower purses. Last week, Saratoga announced a cut in its minimum purses from $3,000 to $2,500. At Santa Anita, which last winter managed three $100,000 races in a single meeting, horsemen were complaining about giving away so much money in one chunk, instead of spreading it around. Cheap horses, they argued, eat as much hay and oats as stakes winners.

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