Kentucky Derby

Three days of fair Kentucky weather had made the track at Churchill Downs hard and dusty, a strip of yellow cardboard between the high white stands and the infield where, from an immense Maypole, hundreds of small flags slanted to the green turf. Mutuel clerks in their shirt-sleeves leaned in the windows along the brick terrace behind the clubhouse. Equipoise, the winter-book favorite owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt ("Sonny") Whitney, but no longer favored since his beatings in the Chesapeake Stakes and the Preakness, had been scratched because of a blind quarter (hidden bruise) discovered in his right fore leg that morning. Twenty Grand, coupled in the betting with Surf Board and Anchors Aweigh, was the favorite. A. C. Bostwick's Mate, the Preakness winner, was second choice and the rest of the dozen starters were at lengthening odds to the field horses and one absurd long shot, Prince D'Amour, at more than 75 to 1.

Wrestler Jim Londos who had won a match the night before put a bet on Sweep All, horse of Charles T. Fisher (Bodies). Barney Oldfield, smoking a cigaret, sat on the club house veranda talking to Jack Curley who once taught him how to ride a bicycle. Boxer Max Schmeling stood and looked at the crowd with his habitually puzzled expression. Actress Queenie Smith made excited comments to her escort Drama critic Robert Garland. Blind Thomas Pryor Gore, onetime Senator from Oklahoma said he liked Twenty Grand. John Hertz remembered the year his Reigh Count won the Derby. Jockey Earl Sande, who won last year, said he liked Mate and leaned his back against the paddock rail, waiting for the moment when he would be called to say a few words over the N. B. C. hookup. Late in the afternoon, the crowd began to climb into the stands for the fifth race, the Derby.

In a black cap and the black striped sleeves and pink of Mrs. Payne Whitney's Greentree Stable, Jockey Kurtsinger on Twenty Grand was the first to come out of the tunnel under the stands from the paddock to the track. The horses danced past the clubhouse, where swart little Vice President Curtis sat in the stand built a year ago for the Earl of Derby. Then they turned and danced back, a noiseless, brilliant procession, to the starting line where the track straightens into the home stretch. They were there for only a moment, too far away to be seen without glasses, an obscure line against the dusty background. Then the line grew narrow and began to come toward the grandstand.

Going past the stand, Boys Howdy and Prince D'Amour were in front, Ladder, Sweep All and The Mongol bunched behind. Ladder took the lead at the half-mile. In the back stretch, with the jockeys' backs profiled above the rail like mechanical rabbits, Sweep All moved up and passed Ladder. Twenty Grand saved his speed for the last half-mile. George Ellis who had brought a Negro jockey all the way from Baltimore so he could rub his head for luck, was up on Mate. He and Kurtsinger drew their whips at the same time coming into the straight. Mate was tired but Twenty Grand passed Sweep All and moved away so easily he was four lengths ahead at the finish with Mate in third place, three lengths behind Sweep All.

Over the fast track, Twenty Grand's time for the mile-and-a-quarter was 2:01 4/5, a new track record and almost two seconds better than the Derby Record of 2:03 1/5 made by Old Rosebud in 1914.

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