The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1902-07-28
The Grandest Race Of the Year
Scheduled For Saturday.
Lord Derby and Boralma to
Trot For $4,000 Purse.
A FORTUNEFOR. WINNER
Race Will Be Over Charter Oab
Track at Hartford.
Greater Amount Of Money Will
Be Upon Lord Derby.

Chicago, July 2S.-The most interest
ing event in the trotting horse horizon
just now is the great match race be-
tween Lord Derby and Boralrna, sched-
uled to take place next Saturday over
the Charter Oak park track at Hartford
Conn.
In point of magnitude from a money
standpoint this race has never been
equaled either on the trotting or the
running turf, when matches pure and
simple are considered. The owner OF
each horse has put up $4,000 on chances
of his favorite, and the track adds $780,
600, making a total of $4,000 to be trot-
ted for, all of which goes to the winner.
making the capturing of this event
more notable from a monetary stand
point, than the winning of an American
Derby twice over.
The reasons which brought about the
making of a two horse race for such
lot of money are simple enough. Tom"
Lawson, the owner of Boralma, is not
a man who deals in small amounts
when money is concerned. Or all his
horses Boralma is his pet and pride.
and on more than one occasion he has
winnings of the horse, when a valuable
stake fell to him, to charity. In 1900.
when the $4,000 Massachusetts stake at
Boston was won by the chestnut geld
ing Lawson announced that the entire
winnings, entrance money and all,would
go to the Children'S hospital of his home
town, and later in the season, when
BoraIma was first in the $4,000 Transyl-
vania stake at Lexington, the hospitals
of the Kentucky town got the money.
The defeat on two occasions last year
of Boralrna by Lord Derby was sore
disappointment to Lawson, and during
the winter, after he had made a change
in the management of his trotting af-
fairs, he announced that he was willing
to match the horse against either Lord
Derby or The Abbot, or both. for as
much money as the owners of those
trotters cared to chance on their steeds-
In the meantime Lord Derby had been
sold, and his owner was E. e. Smathers.
a New Yorker who likes nothing better
than to plunge in trotting race. In
common with most people who make
study of harness racing, Mr.. SmitherS
was of the opinion that the races last
year between Derby and Boralma show
ed conclusively that the former was
both faster and gamer than the Boston
representative, and the match that is to
be trotted next Saturday was made at
once. For once in the history of match
races between notably fast trotters.
there is no question but that the amount
of money advertised as stake has
been actually put up, and that the whole
affair has been for blood" from start
to finish.
AS for Smathers, the owner of Derby.
he is about as high a gan bier as the
trotting turf has ever SEEM He is also
a good judge of horses and what they
can do. His driver. George Spear, is
cool-headed to a degree, and, considered
purely as a reinsman and a conditioner
of horses, ranks high. Spear induced
Smathers to give $4,000 at auction for
Lord Derby last winter when the horse
was lame and it was not certain that
he would ever race again, and he has
looked after HIM, day and night, from
that time with the sole idea. of demon
strating that his charge is the best trot-
ter in training, confident that when the
days comes he will beat The Abbott
with whom he is also matched.
AS to the race next Saturday and it's
probable outcome, it is safe to say 80
per cent of professional horse1nen think
Lord Derby will win. They know and
appreciate the fact that at Boston last
summer, in a race with Cresceus, he
trotted an eighth of mile at an adj
mittedly faster rate of speed than was
ever before attained by trotter. They
recall that he beat Boralna at Hart
ford two weeks later, the best heat in
2:061z, and that a little later in the
season, when he and Boralma came to-
gether at Boston, 1t was straight heats
for Derby, with Boralma outtrotted at
every stage of the race. With both
horses in condition, they do not think
there Is any argument as to which will
win, and they believe that, with the
possible exception of Geers, no man is
better able to bring Derby to the post
in shape to go fast race than George
Spear.
1t happens that up to date both horses
have done all that has been asked of
them in training, End they have done it
in such style as to indicate that they
are in order for the finishing touches of
their preparation Boralma has worked
one mile trif1e better than 2:08 over
a track that was certainly no faster
than Hartford's will be next Saturday,