Sport: Hambletonian

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Greyhound got away fast at the rail. Suddenly the field, which had passed the starter well bunched and trotting smoothly, scattered in complete confusion. Pedro Tipton and Tilly Tonka broke first, and then, on the first turn, Lawrence Hanover. As the horses trotted into the first leg of the V-shaped backstretch, the crowd groaned because Warwell Worthy had opened up a gap of 15 lengths. Although Greyhound was almost the same distance ahead of the rest, it looked as if the shortest priced Hambletonian favorite in years was now doomed to lose the heat.

Then followed a performance which, for sophisticated spectators in the crowd of 40,000 that jammed the wooden grandstand and bleachers of Good Time Park at Goshen, N. Y., stamped Greyhound as the greatest trotter seen on a U. S. track since Peter Manning, more than a decade ago. Stride by stride through the backstretch he cut down Warwell Worthy's lead. On the turn into the homestretch he passed her, swinging out, and the two came into the straightaway neck & neck. A faint cloud of dust, raised by hoofs and wheels, lengthened and faded as the sulkies drew apart. At the finish, Sep Palin, driving the grey, was sitting straight and drawing in his reins. Warwell Worthy was a full five lengths behind.

That, last week, was the second heat of the world's richest race for harness horses. In the first heat, Greyhound, already a 1-to-2 favorite, had come up from last in the backstretch to win by a neck over Pedro Tipton, in 2 min. 2 1/4 sec., the best winner's time ever clocked in the trot. In the interval between heats, bookmakers had cut down the odds and finally, when this failed to discourage Greyhound's backers, scratched him off their boards. By winning the second heat in 1934 Greyhound became the first trotter to take the Hambletonian Stake in straight heats since Walter Dear in 1929. A lean, grey, three-year-old gelding, singularly unimpressive when not in fast motion, he ambled back to the finish line, received a wreath of roses and an embrace from the weather-beaten driver with whom he had earned $18.000 (winner's share of the $33,000 purse) for his owner, Edward I J. Baker of St. Charles. Ill.

Horses are now obsolete as a means of speedy locomotion. This, far from spoiling the sport of harness racing, has acted as a stimulus, by removing all its stigma of utility. Always popular in rural communities, harness racing lost favor in Eastern cities in the years following the War. In 1926, William H. Cane, a rich contractor and trotting fancier of Goshen, helped promote the first Hambletonian, named for the famed sire of 95% of U. S. harness racers, for the undreamed of purse of $73,000. The Hambletonian, which promptly became the Kentucky Derby of trotting, has lately caused an astonishing revival of the sport. Last year there were some 700 trotting meets in the U. S. for purses which totaled $4,000,000. This year there will be about 800 and $1,000,000 more in prizes. This year the Hambletonian purse, which dropped to $25,000 last year, got an $8,000 raise.