Grand National

(See front cover)

"Ride just as if you were out hunting the first time around. After that, and not before, you may begin to look about you and see what the others are doing."

This sage hint for the Grand National was given by an old trainer to Count Charles Kinsky, who won the race with his own mare, Zoedone, in 1883. Another scrap of the lore which has grown up since 1839 around the hardest steeplechase in the world--four and one-half miles over 30 jumps at Aintree, England--is not to ride a favorite. Most Grand National winners have been outsiders. At Aintree this week the favorites--Miss Dorothy Paget's Golden Miller and Mrs. M. A. Gemmell's Gregalach, the winner at 100-to-1 in 1929--had a better chance than usual. Last week the entries were cut down to 34, smallest field since 1926.

The smallness of the field emphasized the fact that the Grand National--partly because in the U. S. steeplechasing has lagged behind flat-racing--has become almost as much of an event for U. S. owners as it is for British. There were nine U. S.-owned horses in the list of final acceptances last week. One of them, Mrs. Thomas H. Somerville's Trouble Maker, had a chance to take from Rubio, the 1908 winner, the distinction of being the only U. S.-bred horse ever to win at Aintree. Only two U. S. owners--Stephen ("Laddie") Sanford in 1923 with Sergeant Murphy and A. Charles Schwartz in 1926 with Jack Homer--have won Grand Nationals. The owner who has tried hardest to equal their achievement has had the hardest luck. He is John Hay ("Jock") Whitney who has had entries in every Grand National since 1929. Last week he sold one of his candidates for this year's race--a jumper named Slater--to an Englishman. His remaining horse, Dusty Foot, who fell at the third fence last year when he was one of the favorites, may be the first U. S.-owned & ridden horse to win at Aintree. Dusty Foot's jockey this week was to be his owner's friend, George Herbert ("Pete") Bostwick, ablest gentleman rider in the U. S. Pete Bostwick went to England last autumn planning to ride one of his own steeplechasers in the Grand National, but his likeliest mount, Burglar, trained badly. Last week he accepted the Whitney horse.

Waiting for the parade to the post this week Jock Whitney will have good reason to have faith in Jockey Bostwick and Dusty Foot. They won one of the most significant tests for the Grand National, the Open Hunters' Steeplechase at Sandown, month ago. Last fortnight they finished second in the National Hunt Steeplechase at Cheltenham (TIME, March 20). But Jock Whitney's excitement as he watches the field, cluttered at the start, narrow off toward Melling Road, will be evidence also of his faith in something even less tangible than Dusty Foot's chances in this year's Grand National. The owner of favored Golden Miller is his cousin. Like her, he will be upholding the tradition of a family which, for three generations, has made its name almost constantly the most important one in U. S. racing; a family which, for half a century, has been at the forefront of the U. S. sporting aristocracy.

Jock Whitney's grandfather was William Collins Whitney, a New England lawyer who amassed a fortune in street railways, became Secretary of the Navy under President Cleveland, built up a string of race horses to extend his Wall Street rivalry with James R. Keene.

Jock Whitney's father was the late (William) Payne Whitney who inherited his fortune from his uncle, Colonel Oliver Hazard Payne of Cleveland, founded the great Greentree Stable, left it to his wife when he died on his tennis court in 1927.

Jock Whitney's uncle was the late Harry Payne Whitney, who inherited most of William Collins Whitney's fortune, organized the U. S. polo team that beat England in 1909, owned and sailed the America's Cup contender Vanitie (1910), in 1930 left the finest string of race horses in the U. S. to Cornelius Vanderbilt ("Sonny") Whitney, his son by Sculptress Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Sonny Whitney, almost as horsy as his Cousin Jock, has extended his family's business interests by becoming an active director of Pan American Airways. Last autumn he tried to become swank Long Island's Congressman on the Democratic ticket, but was easily beaten by the experienced socialite incumbent, big Robert L. Bacon. Since he watched his Equipoise come from behind in the mud to win the Pimlico Futurity of 1930, Cousin Sonny's interest in keeping up his father's stable has been real. But friends of both consider Cousin Jock far more likely to be the great turf Whitney of this generation.

Jock Whitney's mother is an important factor in this. Daughter of the McKinley-Roosevelt Secretary of State John Hay, she was always as keen about horses as Payne Whitney, has personally kept the dossiers of all the Greentree horses for many years.

Why it may be said that the Whitneys as a family, and the Jock Whitneys as individuals, are the chief props & mainstays of fine horses and horse racing in the U. S., can be gathered from the following list of places where Whitney flat-racers, steeplechasers, brood mares, stallions, polo ponies et al. were last week training, breeding, resting, munching oats:

Mr. & Mrs. Jock Whitney:

Wantage, England--his steeplechasers.

Newmarket, England--his flat-racers.

Middleton Park, Ireland--his stud farm.

Bradentown, Ireland--her steeplechasers.

Upperville, Va.--her hunters and jumpers.

Upperville, Va.--his Langollen Stables, Inc.

Lexington, Ky.--his flat-racers, Langollen Stables breeding depot.

Manhasset, L. I.--his polo ponies.

Mrs. Payne Whitney:

Red Bank, N. J.--her Greentree Stable, mostly flat-racers.

Lexington, Ky.--her breeding and training depot.

Mr. & Mrs. Sonny Whitney:

Red Bank, N. J.--his stable of flat-racers (across the road from his aunt's).

Wheatley Hills, L. I.--his polo ponies, her flat-racers.

Lexington, Ky.--Their breeding and training stables.

Mrs. Joan Whitney Payson:

Manhasset, L. I.--her new stable of flat-racers.

At Saratoga, N. Y., Hialeah Park, Fla., Belmont Park. L. I. and all other important U. S. tracks are stables of all Whitneys for use before and during race-meets.

Jock Whitney's racing career started in 1929 when he financed Jack Anthony, famed British trainer and oldtime jockey, the only man alive who has won the Grand National thrice, to start a stable of steeplechasers for him at Wantage, England. They almost won the Grand National on their first try but Easter Hero, leading a record field of 66, twisted a plate (which now hangs on the door of his stall at Langollen), limped home second. In the U. S., Jock Whitney began to build his string after his marriage to utterly horsy Mary Elizabeth ("Liz") Altemus of Philadelphia two years ago. At "Langollen" (near Upperville, Va.), capital of the Jock Whitneys' horse activities in the U. S., are two of the hardest brush and timber courses in the country. There every year is run the Langollen National Steeplechase for which the Whitneys put up the cup. Trainer for Mrs. Whitney--who "rents" her husband's horses from Langollen Stables. Inc., races them under her name--is James W. ("Big Jim") Healy. not to be confused with Tom Healey, who trains for Sonny Whitney. Sylvio Coucci is her ablest jockey. Financial adviser to Langollen Stable--and manager of most of the other racing enterprises of all the Whitneys--is Major Louie A. Beard, onetime captain of the U. S. Army polo team. Mrs. Whitney's racing string was enlarged from 41 horses in 1932, to 62 this year. Most notable purchase of the year by Jock Whitney was the Australian mare Nea Lap, sister of famed Phar Lap. Last winter she was bred to The Porter, able 18-year-old stallion which Jock Whitney bought two years ago for $27,000.

It was in the family tradition for Jock Whitney to row at Yale; he stroked the 1926 junior varsity. When his father died, he had just finished a year at Oxford. Since then--though he belongs definitely to the more conservative branch of the family, in whom the prudent Payne blood runs strong--he has begun to blossom out as befits a young man with a fortune estimated at $100,000,000. Readily accessible in his office at No. 14 Wall St., he is not suspicious or wary of people who come to sell him things, but keenly alert for interesting and constructive ways to invest his money. He lost a lot two years ago backing a musical show for his artist friend Peter Arno, but the experience did not diminish his liking for and friendship with such characters as Robert Benchley and Donald Ogden Stewart. His aunt, Mrs. Leonard K. Elmhurst, backed The New Republic and Asia. Nephew Jock owns a substantial slice of Polo. Lately he was reported investigating the possibilities of founding a new cinema company.

Aviation is another Jock Whitney enthusiasm, but chiefly as an adjunct to polo and racing. Greentree is his polo team and he is a four-goal man, as good a back as hard-riding Pete Bostwick is a forward. Last summer he built a new field, carved out of the side of a hill on the Whitney place at Manhasset. L. I. Too heavy to ride his own steeplechasers in races, he rides to hounds, shoots, plays squash, flies his own cabin-plane, which was last year nearly destroyed by fire in its hangar at Roosevelt Field. The name of his plane-- Pegasus--is the kind of gesture that is fully understandable only to horse people, people who find, as Jock Whitney does, a rich and serious importance in the thundering field, bunched at the start, narrowing to the first thorn fence at Aintree.

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