Sport: 6oth Derby

At 7 o’clock the evening before the 60th annual running of the Kentucky Derby in Louisville last week, fire broke out in stables U and W at Churchill Downs. The barns were destroyed, a few horses ran wild in the infield, but none of the 19 high-strung Derby entries was much disturbed. Throughout the night, Derby guests continued their yearly romp, the less restrained firing the annual barrage of empty bottles into the court of the Brown Hotel in spite of the fact that Kentucky is now wet and liquor is sold by the glass. Next morning light showers fell, sending the odds down on long-shot mudders. By lunch time the track was already packed. And although Jailbird Alphonse (“Scarface Al”) Capone had been unable to attend with special Pullman-loads of friends & associates as of old, it looked like old times when the record crowd of 60,000 citizens and notables arrived in full force. Six horses were scratched in the morning and early afternoon, including the Pacific Coast hope, Riskulus. leaving 13 limber-legged thoroughbreds to spring from the barrier as the crowd uttered one vast shrill: “They’re off!” Mata Hari, Charles T. Fisher’s filly, broke fast and led to the first turn, Sgt. Byrne closing swiftly. Jockey Don Meade went to the outside with Colonel Edward Riley Bradley’s filly Bazaar, hot after the leaders. Little old Jockey Mack Garner, in the ruck with Mrs. Isabel Dodge Sloane’s big brown colt Cavalcade, swung to the rail to get out and ahead of the press. Mata Hari and Sgt. Byrne fell back, bunching the field and making it necessary for Garner to take Cavalcade all the way outside again. At the half-mile pole, Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt’s Discovery pushed out in front and while his backers yelled themselves hoarse, stayed there until the furlong pole. After turning for home, Jockey Garner took to the whip. Down the stretch he thundered on Cavalcade, past Discovery one length, two lengths. Three lengths ahead, he eased up as he flashed under the wire a winner. Discovery placed. Agrarian took the show. Over the wires in the press coop, high in the old gimcrack stands, Cavalcade’s statistics flashed out to the world. His time for the 1¼ mi. was 2104 flat, no derby record. He was the second English-bred horse to win the race, having been imported in utero when Hastily was in foal to Lancegaye. Only other imported winner was Omar Khayyam (1917). Winner of all this year’s three starts as a 3-year-old, Cavalcade received $28,175 of the $37,000 Derby purse. In addition, jubilant Mrs. Sloane, first woman to win the Derby since Mrs. Payne Whitney’s victory with Twenty Grand (1931) was taken down to the judges’ stand to receive the $5,000 gold trophy. Postmaster General James Aloysius Farley made appropriate remarks. Bumbling Governor Ruby Laffoon of Kentucky said it gave him “inexpress—, inexp— unexplainable pleasure” to present the cup. He then turned to the microphone, urged everybody to come to Kentucky on Labor Day to celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of that great Kentuckian, that great friend of horses, “Dan’l Boone.”