The Washington times., 1938-03-23

n ningS on
~ S Pompoon, we
Bill COrum at / e d t
brought back a lot of memories
of our trip to California, not
many of them connected with
the "Big Dew" that seems in
evitably to settle on that won
derful State each time we set
foot inside it's borders.
A memory of driving out
through the dark green and
bright gold orange groves toward
white-capped mountains over
santa Anita on the morning OF
the big race to see as fine a field
OF horses and as gay and colortul
a throng as ever graced any race
course.
If there had been a band to-
play MY Old Kentucky Home
and husky voices to take up the
singing of THE Sun SHINES
BRIGHT" it would have been
the greatest race ever. AS it was,
Il was no mean imitation.
LAST FIFTY YARDS
It was a thing to stir your
pulse when Stagehand. the oaoy
of the Santa Anita" drove at
Seabiscuit's throatlatch in that
last so yards, and the old cham-
pion hung on like the horse ne
is, game and good.
Hard-bitten little jockeys
don't cry. Not after almost a
dozen years in the boot, tney
don't. But the lightweight NICK
wall was crying as he guided
stagehand into the chalked
haif-circle beneath the stewards
stand, and as Earle Sande all ouC
danced about the Sultry son OF
Sickle. chortling: Some itte
horse! Oh, boy, what a hVUie
horSe!"
For Nicky Wall had got into
Tos Angeles on the last plane 10
make Burbank before the race
the very last-and he had SAT
down to put up a ride from the
swing for home to the wire that
he knew, and Sande knew, ana
ali those who knew race rldng
knew. was something that Dor
dered on perfection; the perfect
Judgment of experience that can
All but time to clockwork the
seconds and the inches that tell
the tale on the black money
mark where the camera wlnkS.
STORY BEHIND STORY
Because that was the story
behind the story Of the fourth
running of the Santa Anita
Handicap. With Sonny" Work
man on Seabiscuit there would
have been no need for the cam
era. But George Woolf, growing
panicky, had sent SeabiScuit
from eleventh to first in a wild,
44-Second half-mile drive around
the turn off the backSide and
the clock in Walls brain had
said: "At that pace ne must
come back to me-"
And, yard by yard and foot
by foot, through the stretch, a
great horse had come back to
him and the stretch.running
"two-year-old" from Joe Wide
ner'S broad Elmendorf acres off
the Lexington Turnpike. For
"Uncle Joe" is the best man Of
the Santa Anita-always the
gentleman.in-waiting and never
the groom. He sold Azucar and
he sold Stagehand. But one of
these days he'll win one of these
great classics himself. He can't
go on being Santa Claus for
ever, unless he grows more
WhiSkers.
NOT REASON HE CRIED
Which wasn't the full eX-
PLANTATION of why Wall cried
with joy wen Stagehand won.
Jockeys put up million-dollar
rides and 10-cent ones. It's all
in the days work. Nor did the
hefty check that went with the
win account for it. Jockeys
also win and lose those by the
last nod of the wire.
It was. most of all, that long
ago when Wall was a Spindling
kid in Massachusetts,. he had
decided he'd one day be a
horseback rider and picked a
headliner named Earl Sande
as his hero and model, and that
driving hand and heel at Stage
hand in that final charge, he
was somehow making good a
boyish ambition.
So, thanks for the memory of
that, and the arrival of young
Mrs. Howard-Owner Col. Max
How a rd'S daughter-in-law -
whose delayed train got her into
Los Angeles at 3 o'clock on the
afternoon of the race, she had
come all the way from Dayton.
Ohio, to watch Stagehand and
Sceneshifter strive for the great
stake, and she had no means of
transportation to get her to the
track or any ticket when she
got there, and she was all alone.
But she found a taxi and
planked down her $1.10 at the
general admissions gate and as
the bugle blew Boots And
Saddle" for the Santa Anita,
she worked her way through the
crowd around the paddock
pressed herself against the
fence and called:
"Yoo hoo, Mr.. Sande, here
T am"