THE KENTUCKY DERBY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 141, 17 June 1930, Page 12

THE KENTUCKY DERBY.

GALLANT FOX'S VICTORY. LORD DERBY VIEWS RACE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SAN FRANCISCO, May 20. The entente cordiale was advanced still another stage when ■ tlie Earl cE Derby paid a visit to the United States to witness the greatest of America's annual horse races, the Kentucky Derby, on Churchill Downs, in Louisville Kentucky. Champions, every inch .of them and every foot of the way, Earl Sandc and Gallant Fox proved an unbeatable conibination by galloping through the rain to victory in the fifty-sixth running o5 the- great American race. "Come 'on,'Sandc'!" roared the halfIrenched crowd of 50,000 as the great; jockey took command of the race on the back stretch and opened a good lead. 'Come on, Earl!-" they shouted again, as Sande arid Gallant Fox swerved into the liome stretch, spraying the closest contenders'with mud. And come on he did, with a finish.so.magnificently convincing is to leave not the slightest doubt that ;he highly favoured Eastern combination )utclassed the field of crack three-year-jlds. The heavily played favourite, bearing the of William Woodward's Bclair stud of New York, won by two jood lengths from Gallant Knight, of the tVudlcy Farm. G. W. Foreman's Ned 0., inishing with a rush, was third, a length md a half behind Gallant Knight, with aone Away fourth, the last prize position, and Crack Brigade fifth. Popular Acclaim. Tannery, a dismal disappointment, finished eighth, and for the first time for many years the highly-regarded E.' it. Bradley entries Were nowhere. Seldom, if ever, in the history of the Kentucky Derby has so great and spontaneous an outburst of popular acclaim greeted a. victor as the mud-spattered, but smiling and freckle-faced veteran, EarlSande, came back, to the stands on Gallant Fox. While the crowd milled and yelled itself hoarse, the traditional wreath of red roses was draped around the colt's neck, and the Earl of Derby, after witnessing his first American race, stepped out to bestow the coveted gold trophy Tipon William Woodward,' vicechairman of the.New York Jockey Club, and the owner.

yl Derby and horse-racing history was a, made by this .dramatic.victory for thor--0 oughbred class and superlative horsemand ship, Sande rode his third Derby winner, equalling the all-time record for this ancient classic. Gallant Fox, racing on s as mi unbeaten three-year-old, to add the ,f Kentucky classic to triumph in the richt Proakness Race, duplicated an accomt, ])lis]iment registered by only one other ,t horse, Sir Barton, in 1919. The black -. son of Sir Galahad lll.— Marguerito stamped himself as the champion of his class beyond the slightest shadow of a t doubt. ' ' :1 Sande won his first Dtrby in 1923, e astride the noted Eancocas stable raoney- ?. ,winner Zev, and repeated in 1925 with t Plying Ebony, carrying the colours of u Gifford A. Coehran; Several tiroes since n then the great rider had'sought the elu--1 siyo third triumph. He had come close,! but now made certain the honour and; thereby equalled the record of Ike'Miir-, ri phy, negro jockey, who rode the winners u in 1880, 1890 and 1891. It was a dramatic s comeback for the little horseman, who a since his last Derby victory had been r almost killed in an accident, recovered, :l and fought his way back to leadership. >■ . Lord Derby * had a tremendously < enthusiastic reception and came more ii than 4POO miles to see his s first American counterpart of the 1 English race named after his famous family; but, in- common with. ,50,000 others, ho witnessed as one-sided an e affair as Kentucky has known for several a years. Other favourites have galloped 3 home at Churchill Downs. More have T gone down to defeat, but on this occasion 1 it was all Sande and Gallant Fox, even -,» though it was a good half-mile before the g robust son of Sir Galahad 111. actually was pusheij out to dominate the race. t Lord Derby in Evidence. 1 Lord Derby good-naturedly remons strated with the Americans for mispror nouueing his name, but he was carried \ away by the excitement of the horse race I insomuch that he appeared in public ~ } on the open deck of a little pavilion especially built for him. There was a showy-, ceremony in the little grass plot and flower garden surrounding his lordship's glassed-in compartment, in which he had been sitting for some hours, waiting for the race. The force of the private "sluggers," which seems to be a unit of racing establishments, first .indulged in Jive minutes of vigorous pushing around for no special reason at all, and .private policemen delighted themselves by bellowing: "Stand back, there!" Then Sande rode- the horse through the gate and over the grass. Someone tossed a shawl of roses over the horse's shoulders and handed Sande a bundle of roses for himself. He spread his face in a smile, visible through the mud kicked up by the other horses while he was waiting for them to halt. His white silks with the red spots were badly grimed, and the red mask on the horse's head, with big swollen blinkers like frog eyes, was caked with soil of the track. The photographers crashed through and crouched on the damp sod, firing as they ran. The private policemen then pushed some more people around, and Sande dismounted, the horse'being led away, while the small man who rode him entered Lord Derby's pavilion to receive the ceremonial handshake and formal compliments. ' .. : His Lordship now, stepped out" from cover into a frightful downpour of rain, and read an oration into the microphone, leading off in a booming voice surprising in a man supposed to have been reduced to'a whisper si, couple of days previously. Lord Derby noted with pride the Union Jack proudly floating beside the Stars and Stripes and said he hoped those flags would continue to remain side by side as v a gesture of world peace.* Cheer after cheer greeted his remarks, which were carried all over the United States and Canada by radio. Curiously enough, last year's Kentucky Derby was similarly run in a deluge. ~ • u iiii&iJklH