The Derby Favorites

Wagering on any horse race is a generally poor way to stay solvent, and betting on the Kentucky Derby can be sheer folly. The colts are young, and inclined to be spooky. The Derby is their first try at the 1 1/4-mile distance, and no one can know how they will last it. The field is crowded: there are 13 eligibles for this weekend's Derby. Indeed, the Derby sometimes bears closer resemblance to a free-for-all than a racing classic, with favorites getting jostled out of contention and outsiders grabbing the rail to win. None of which prevents racing followers from betting millions each year on the Derby, and in 1960 as always before, they have established their favorites:

P: C. V. Whitney's smallish colt Tompion is an 8-to-5 Derby choice. At Keeneland's Blue Grass Stakes last week, Tompion ran away from three other hopefuls, won his fourth straight major-stakes victory to push his earnings to $315,000. Tompion's bloodlines--by Tom Fool out of Sunlight, a Count Fleet mare--cannot be improved upon. Tom Fool was recently voted the outstanding horse of the 1950s, has already sired one Derby winner, Calumet Farm's Tim Tarn (1958). For C. V. Whitney, a Derby victory would be a long time in the making; in ten Derbys, he has entered 13 horses, never been in the winner's circle.

P: Leonard Fruchtman's Bally Ache is a front runner who likes to take the lead at the starting gate, go for broke to the finish. Says one trainer: "He runs at you every step of the way. He's run on every kind of track and has beaten just about every horse they have led to him." Steel Executive Fruchtman picked up his horse for a bargain-basement price of $2,500, named him Bally Ache after the Jockey Club Commission turned down several other proposed names. Says Fruchtman: "I nearly got an ulcer before we named him Bally Ache." (Fruchtman jokes that when Bally Ache goes to stud, his first colt will be named Bally Button.) Bally Ache has run out of the money only once in 23 races, since January has won the $100,000 Flamingo Stakes and the $100,000 Florida Derby. Says Trainer Jimmy Pitt: "He's successful because he never frets or fusses and is the most relaxed individual I've ever met." In his final Derby prep last week, Bally Ache easily won the Stepping Stone Purse at Churchill Downs.

P: Sunny Blue Farms' Venetian Way, who was second to Bally Ache in the Stepping Stone, won four of his nine starts as a two-year-old, was picked by many as the colt most likely to succeed. But a bad case of blood worms knocked him off form as a three-year-old until he bounced back with a record-tying 1:08 4/5 for six furlongs at Gulfstream, lost by a nose to Bally Ache in the Florida Derby.

Among the lesser lights, Mrs. Mary Elizabeth Whitney Person's Divine Comedy has little staying power, but runs a sizzling six furlongs, could soften up speedsters like Bally Ache for his stretch-running stablemate, Eagle Admiral. Says Calumet Farm's Trainer Jimmy Jones: "We don't have a good Derby horse, and it's hard to win the Derby with second best." On the face of it, Jimmy Jones seems right; neither of Calumet's entries, Hillsborough or Pied d'Or, has ever won a stakes race. But many bettors would put their money on Calumet Trainers Jimmy and Ben Jones's past track record: eight winners in 15 Derby starters. For in the Derby, it is often safer to bet on people than on horses.

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