At Belmont Park

By the time the Belmont Stakes is run each year, at Belmont Park near Manhattan, the racing season is usually far enough advanced for experts to have a clear idea of which horses are the year's best three-year-olds. Sometimes there is an odds-on favorite, as was Man O'War who set an American record when he won the Belmont in 1920. Sometimes, especially when a horse not entered in the Kentucky Derby meets the Derby winner in the Belmont, it is a great match race. It was supposed to be a match race a year ago when William Woodward's Derby-winner Gallant Fox (later the greatest money horse--$38,165--in racing history) beat the late Harry Payne Whitney's Which-one by four lengths. It was supposed to be a match race again last week when Mrs. Payne Whitney's Derby-winner Twenty Grand ran against George D. Widener's Jamestown and Mrs. Katherine Elkins Hitt's Sun Meadow.

The Belmont Stakes, not so thoroughly publicized as the Kentucky Derby, attracts a smaller and proportionately more socialite crowd, is worth more ($58,770) to the winner. The race was run on a hot sunny afternoon, with Twenty Grand the favorite, Jamestown a second choice at even money. The horses broke out of the starting stalls together, then straightened out with Jamestown ahead and Twenty Grand last. They stayed in practically the same positions with Twenty Grand running easily and well behind the leaders as he did in the Derby, till the last turn. Then Twenty Grand and Sun Meadow began to move up and the three horses came into the stretch almost exactly abreast. In front of the stands, it suddenly seemed that Jamestown and Sun Meadow were racing on a treadmill. Twenty Grand ran a length, two lengths, three lengths ahead of them, crossed the finish line eight lengths ahead of Sun Meadow who had beaten Jamestown by a nose. Twenty Grand's time, 2:29 3/5 for a mile and a half (distance of the Belmont Stakes since 1926), was a new record for the Belmont; his total money winnings ($164,075) for Wood Memorial, Derby, Belmont and his two-year-old races made it seem likely that in later races this year--the Arlington Classic, at Arlington, 111.; Travers, at Saratoga--he would pass Gallant Fox's record.

Mrs. Payne Whitney, who inherited the late Payne Whitney's Greentree Stable among other items of the largest estate ever recorded in the U. S., ran out on the track, caught Twenty Grand's bridle, tried to keep him quiet while photographers took their picture.

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