Good-by, Mr. Long Tail

This week the great Whirlaway heard his last bugle call. At Chicago's Washington Park, history's greatest money-winning thoroughbred ($561,161) ambled on to the track, made a farewell bow, then started back to the Kentucky blue grass where, five years ago, he was born.

Racing fans will long remember the horse dubbed Mr. Long Tail because his blond tail nearly swept the ground and reminded oldtimers of the hair-tonic ads of the Seven Sutherland Sisters. Mr. Long Tail set no world's records like Big Red (Man o' War) or the late great Ekky (Equipoise). But he was a dramatic racer, a notorious latefoot who came from behind, his long tail streaming, to cut down rival after rival.

Noted for durability as well as speed, Whirlaway had gone to the post 58 times in three years. He was never scratched from a race in which he had been entered, ran on all sorts of tracks : holding, muddy, sloppy, slow, heavy and lightning-fast. Last summer, when he broke Seabiscuit's money-winning record ($437,730), Whirlaway seemed sound enough to surpass the Biscuit's 89 racing starts as well. But during the winter he developed a leg ailment that kept him out of training for several months.

Fortnight ago, in his first start as a five-year-old Whirlaway showed none of his old flourish. Last week, in the Equipoise Mile at Washington Park, he finished out of the money for the first time since he was a temperamental two-year-old. Next day Owner Warren Wright announced Whirlaway's retirement to stud. "After all," commented Trainer Ben Jones, "it would be little short of inhumane to continue training such a great horse and run the chance of permanently maiming him."

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