Horse of the Year

The Pimlico Special, coming at the end of the season when all but the champions have raced themselves out of contention, is a far more important race than its purse value suggests. For 13 years it has played a leading role in the annual horse-of-the-year award, and it has sometimes resuited in a race of the year (such as War Admiral v. Seabiscuit in 1938).* Last week's renewal of the sporting Special--by invitation as usual, for $15,000 winner-take-all--brought together the two speed demons of 1949's two leading stables: Calumet's four-year-old Coaltown and Greentree's three-year-old Capot.

The only other time they met, in the Sysonby Mile at Belmont Park, Capot matched Coaltown's blazing pace stride for stride for 7/8 of a mile until the 1-to-10 favorite cracked. Most bettors thought it was a fluke; Coaltown had set a new world record for the mile, had tied the 1 1/8-and 1 1/4-mile records. But many horsemen suspected that John Gaver, Capot's trainer, had discovered Coaltown's weakness: a horse that could stay with him could beat him.

Second Choice. Gaver thought so too. What he didn't want to do was to run Capot in the Special against a Calumet entry of Coaltown and Ponder--with Coaltown setting a murderous pace and Ponder coming from behind in the stretch. By threatening to keep his horse in the barn, Gaver forestalled that possibility.

When Coaltown and Capot finally met last weekend, the big surprise was that Maryland's knowledgeable horse players had made Capot a distinct second choice. Coaltown was the red-hot favorite at 3 to 10--just as though Capot had never measured his heart for size in the Sysonby.

First Turn. Capot, stung by a slash from Jockey Ted Atkinson's whip, gave everything he had from the break. The strategy was obvious.: stay with Coaltown, and make him give up. Atkinson kept shaking the reins and yelling at his mount. Alongside him, Jockey Steve Brooks did his best to pump a little extra speed from Coaltown. Like a runaway team, the two horses thundered past the grandstand and into the first turn.

The crowd, which seldom gets noisy until the last quarter-mile of a race, sensed that the climax would come early and set up a swelling roar. Then, suddenly, it was all over. With Capot saving ground on the rail, he nosed ahead on the turn. Coaltown tried but could not keep up. Down the backstretch Capot's lead lengthened to two lengths, then to four. Brooks hit Coaltown only once, got no response, and did not punish him needlessly.

Capot, who has never been beaten at Pimlico, pounded down the home stretch a dozen lengths in front. His time for the mile-and-three-sixteenths: 1:56 4/5, less than a second off the track record he set in winning the Preakness last May.

* Five of the Specials have been won by all-conquering Calumet Farm, two of them in "walkovers" by Whirlaway and Citation, whose championship claims no other stable could even challenge.

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