Sport: Full of Run

For the past four months, two horses have stood out among the three-year-olds of 1950. Many horsemen insist that the Kentucky Derby and Belmont winner, Middleground, rates the edge. But Christopher Chenery’s strapping Preakness winner, Hill Prince, probably has as many admirers.*

Last week, at Chicago’s Washington Park for the 40th running of the American Derby, Hill Prince made another bid for the title. Although Middleground was not among the nine horses which went to the barrier, the field was a strong one, including William Goetz’s flashy, California-bred Your Host and Calumet Farm’s entry of Theory and All Blue.

Hill Prince, after a rigorous spring campaign, had not raced for two months, and he came out full of run. Jockey Eddie Arcaro held the big bay off the pace until the field entered the backstretch, then let him move up on the outside. At the head of the stretch, All Blue* had the lead, but Hill Prince caught him with a rush in the last sixteenth. Hill Prince won by more than a length over All Blue, with Your Host third. Time for the mile and a quarter: a fast 2:01 1/5. The winner’s purse, $60,050, brought Hill Prince’s three-year-old earnings to $210,563, tops in his class.

*Including Handicapper John Blanks Camp bell, racing secretary for the New York tracks who last week rated Hill Prince two pounds bet ter than Middleground in assigning weights fa a handicap at Aqueduct. This reversed his pre season rating of Middleground at 126 Ibs., Hil Prince at 124. *On the eve of the 1949 Kentucky Derby, which Calumet Trainer Ben Jones won with Ponder, a TIME correspondent asked Jones which of his two-year-olds he thought might be his best Derby prospect in 1950. Jones guessed that All Blue might be (TIME, May 30, 1949). Although he came around too late to run in any of the triple crown events, All Blue is now the best three-year-old in Calumet’s barn.