California Moves In

Clouds piled high over Churchill Downs.Lightning flickered, and a few drops splashed from the thunderheads. The band broke into My Old Kentucky Home, the mint-julep vendors stopped their spiel, and the carnival that was the 81st Kentucky Derby slowed down to a hush.

On the track, ten thoroughbreds paraded to the post. But anyone in position or condition to see them--and few were--had eyes for only three: Nashua, owned by New York Financier William Woodward Jr.; Summer Tan, owned by Columbus, Ohio's Mrs. John W. Galbreath; and Swaps, owned by California Rancher Rex Ellsworth.

A week before, the Run for the Roses had figured to be a two-horse race. Nashua and Summer Tan would be continuing their thrilling two-year-old feud. But the crowd had taken a fancy to California-bred Swaps. Now he was their 14-5 second choice--high esteem for a colt whose ex-cowboy owner had come to Kentucky in 1933 with $600 in his poke and a yen to buy some brood mares. By 1946 Ellsworth was successful enough to buy a brown horse named Khaled from the Aga Khan, and last week Khaled's son Swaps was carrying the red-and-black Ellsworth colors in their first Derby.

The horses broke well, pounded around the fading arc of the stretch turn where other Derby fields had tangled, and twisted the odds in their rush for the rail. Swaps wasted no time. Jockey Willie Shoemaker booted him clear, and he took the lead. Nashua eased wide, as Jockey Eddie Arcaro held him off the pace. Summer Tan, too, ran with the pack. Coming around the stretch turn again, Nashua made his move. He pulled up for a split-second look at Swaps, and then Shoemaker took his mount away. Said Arcaro later: "Swoosh went Swaps." Nashua just did not have it. Swaps drove past the wire, winner by a length and a half and richer by $108,400. In show position, 6 1/2 lengths back, came fading Summer Tan.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.