Sport: Great Blood

Among the European refugees landing in Manhattan last week was nine-year-old Bahram, best race horse bred in England since World War I. If World War II had not discouraged British breeders, Bahram would never have been sent to the U. S.—not for all the gold in the world.

Bred and owned by His Highness The Aga Khan, Bahram had never been defeated. As a three-year-old, he won England’s famed “triple crown” (the Epsom Derby, Two Thousand Guineas and St. Leger Stakes)—something that only 13 other thoroughbreds had accomplished during 130 years of British horse racing. At stud, Bahram’s blood lines were important to British racing. But last month, when the Nazis confiscated the French branch of the Aga Khan’s fabulous stable, the Indian potentate, stranded on a Swiss Alp (TIME, Aug. 19), decided to sell his priceless Bahram—for a sum close to a quarter of a million dollars.

To U. S. turfmen, the arrival of Bahram was big news. But bigger still was the news that his new owners were not the Wideners, Woodwards and Whitneys who usually import great European stallions, but a syndicate of four young men, all under 35: Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, Sylvester Labrot Jr., James Cox Brady Jr. and Walter P. Chrysler Jr. Alfred Vanderbilt is no tyro at either raising or racing thoroughbreds. Six years ago, on his 21st birthday, he inherited his mother’s magnificent stud farm and racing stable, invested half a million or more in Pimlico and Belmont Park race tracks, is well on his way to becoming America’s No. 1 turfman. Young Labrot, whose ancestors made a fortune in rum, is carrying on where his father left off in 1935—requesting that his sons refrain from racing for five years after his death. Young Brady, grandson of the late Financier Anthony Nicholas Brady (who left an estate of $85,000,000), has been modestly buying thoroughbreds for the past few years. An absolute newcomer to horse racing, however, is 31-year-old Walter P. Chrysler Jr.

Son of a man whose life was devoted to automobiles, young Chrysler, unlike young Vanderbilt, Labrot and Brady, was never taken to race tracks when he was a kid. A bookworm and esthete, he dabbled in book publishing and other arty ventures while still in his teens. Suddenly, last summer, he got the urge to own a string of race horses, went to Saratoga, bought nine yearlings, hired Oldtimer Henry McDaniel to train them. What young Chrysler lacked in turf knowledge, he began to pick up from old Uncle Henry, who in his 73 years has trained horses for Lucky Baldwin, Willis Sharpe Kilmer, Joseph Widener and many another famed U. S. turfman.

That young Chrysler is earnest about becoming a patron of U. S. horse racing was evident when he returned to Saratoga this year. Accompanied by Trainer McDaniel, he spent his early mornings watching workouts, his early evenings learning the ABCs of conformation at the ringside of the Sales Paddock. Before he was called back to Long Island by his father’s fatal illness last fortnight, young Chrysler had added 13 more yearlings to his stable. The $53,000 he paid for them was second only to the amount spent by Chocolate Heiress Ethel Mars (Milky Way Farm), leading yearling buyer at Saratoga for the last six years.