Derby

The animated group that had witnessed the bartering of Man O' War's parents and friends left the meadow at twilight and motored back to Louisville. The auctioneer, they agreed, had been lucky. He never would have got such prices for Belmont's nags if it had not been the afternoon before Derby Day when everyone was feverish and even the yellow dogs of Kentucky, feeling the spring of the year, carried their tails gay.

Many a supper table, that night, kept its candles wagging until the company came back to blow them out and sit down to Derby breakfast with day broad at the windows; many a pretty gentleman cut cards and drank his glass who might not have a penny by sunset. It dawned cloudily; the morning was bright and dour in fits, with little spurts of rain and a rattle of distant thunder like uneasy hoofs. On the sidings of the railroad waited eight and a half miles of Pullman cars. Airplanes were neatly parked near the grandstand. Innumerable financiers, editors, sportsmen, presidential candidates and sharkies, who knew a horse when they saw one, tried to see one, elbowing one another, as 20 nimble three-year-olds paraded to the barrier.

Of the caracoling or sedately marching 20, there was one that the knowing jostlers chiefly desired to ogle-Quatrain, winner of the New Orleans Handicap and the Louisiana Derby, favored in the odds at 2 to 1. He was liked, not because he had been personally trained by his owner, Frederick Johnson, Manhattan turfman, but because Earl Sande, famed jockey, winner of the 1923 Derby on Zev, had offered Jockey Bruening $2,000 and 10% of the winnings for the privilege of riding him, and Bruening had refused. A. A. Kaiser's Captain Hal, who had turned in the best trial times, and Kentucky Cardinal, also impressive in trial, were popular. Sande was up on Flying Ebony, stable mate to G. A. Cochran's Coventry, Preakness winner. The Whitney-Greentree Stables' entries had been weakened by the loss of Chantey, a last-minute scratch.

A sprinkle of rain fell; thunder stamped in Heaven; the webbing went up. 'They're 'rorf," shouted William Gibbs McAdoo, Marshall Field, Knute Rockne, Harry F. Sinclair, Walter J. Salmon, many Elks, Knights, a haberdasher, a sculptor, 75,000 assorted odd fellows and their ladies.

Out of the smother at the first turn, flashed a horse ("Singlefoot," screamed Coach Rockne), fell back before another ("Captain Hal," howled Owner Kaiser). Where was Quatrain? Waiting for an opening. Where was Kentucky Cardinal? Nowhere. Another horse was out now, pressing at the withers of the gallant Captain Hal, at his shoulder, at his muzzle, was clearly bumping himself like a black witch rabbit. Only one man now believed that Quatrain had a chance: he was Sande, bent to the shoulder of Flying Ebony. He could outrun Captain Hal he thought, but Quatrain was the best horse in the race, the horse he had wanted to ride; Quatrain could catch him. He was running between solid lanes of people; the finish was almost upon him. With a tremendous, unnecessary effort, he lifted Flying Ebony down the last half furlong. A length and a half behind came Captain Hal. Four lengths back, Singlefoot led the struggling, straggling pack. Sande found himself with a gold cup in his hand, a bunch of roses in his arms, on the back of Flying Ebony, smiling into the cameras that make the world's press.