Mrs. Sloane's Week

When the field took the turn in the Youthful Stakes, run at Jamaica fortnight ago, Psychic Bid, of Mrs. Isabel Dodge Sloane's Brookmeade Stable, went wide. Swart little Jockey Dominick Bellizzi tugged desperately at his 2-year-old's left rein. The bit slipped through Psychic Bid's angry mouth. Jockey Bellizzi went flying from his perch, hurtled into the dust. Hoofs struck and crushed his crumpled body and when the field thundered off Jockey Bellizzi lay in his dirty royal-blue-&-white silks, unconscious.

The 22-year-old rider lay on his deathbed in a Long Island hospital, but neither Mrs. Sloane nor the physicians she sent to tend him realized it when the Spring meeting of the Westchester Racing Association opened at flowery Belmont Park four days later.* Flecked by tragedy, Mrs. Sloane's colors continued their phenomenal gallop from prize to prize. In the 41st running of the Toboggan Handicap, Belmont's opener, Mrs. Sloane's favorite horse, Okapi, was entered. Mack Garner was up --"Colonel" Mack Garner since he had won the Kentucky Derby on Cavalcade two weeks before. Riding high on Brookmeade's luck, Garner, a comparative dodderer among jockeys, at 34 was having the best season of his 20 years in racing. Nothing could stop him, and nothing did. He booted Okapi down the Widener chute with 15,000 people yelling in the sunshine, bettered the time by which the little brown horse won the race last year as a 3-year-old.

Joseph E. Widener, president of Belmont, made his way through the crowd of delighted socialites around Mrs. Sloane's box. "I'm getting tired of congratulating you," he said, pressing the lady's glove. "I'm getting tired of holding your hand."

As soon as she could, Mrs. Sloane dashed to the paddock where steaming Okapi was being cooled out by Garner and her trainer Robert A. ("Whistling Bob") Smith, also a Kentucky colonel since the Derby. "You made a work horse out of him last year," accused Mrs. Sloane, stroking little Okapi, her "pet." "You made a pacemaker out of him."

Colonel Smith, the epitome of an old-time sporting man, never talks back to a lady who also happens to be his employer. He knew that this particular lady was immensely pleased with the handsome way he has handled her horses this year and last. In 1927 Mrs. Sloane, with part of the millions her late, eccentric father John F. Dodge (automobiles) left her, decided to take,up horse racing. She had bad luck until Bob Smith, 40 years in the business, took over her stable two years ago. He bought Time Clock for $700, Cavalcade for $1,200, High Quest for $3,500. Brookmeade had acquired Okapi for $6,500 and Inlander for $7,200 the year before. With these bargains as the nucleus of a small stable of 39 head, Trainer Smith stepped out in 1933 and proceeded to lay the foundations for a record which is now unequalled by any other horse-owning sportswoman in the history of U. S. turf. Beginning with Inlander's triumphs in the Arlington Classic and Travers Stakes last year, Mrs. Sloane's horses have won 19 important stakes, six of this year's big races: Florida Derby with Time Clock, Chesapeake Stakes and Kentucky Derby with Cavalcade, Wood Memorial and Preakness with High Quest, Toboggan with Okapi. Winnings for 1933-34: $232,605. This more than covers Mrs. Sloane's racing expenses, since she maintains no breeding farm, winters her horses in public quarters at Columbia, S. C.

Mrs. Sloane, Brookmeade's Trainer Smith and Jockey Garner were out for at least two more prizes for the stable this spring. Both the Belmont Stakes ($60,000 added) and the American Derby ($25,000 added) at Chicago will be run June 9. High Quest is entered in the Belmont Stakes, Cavalcade in the American Derby. Last week Trainer Smith was in a dither, did not see how he "could be in two places at once," thought he would stay with High Quest who, although he will not admit it, is his favorite of Brookmeade's flashy pair of 3-year-olds.

*Another freak racing accident occurred on the second day of racing at Belmont. Samuel Riddle's All Aflame was leading in the Lark Purse, Jockey Charlie Kurtsinger up, when suddenly the colt shied at the crowd's cheers, bolted to the inside rail, crossed legs, tripped, fell. Jockey Don Meade and Queen's Flag tumbled over the fallen horse and rider. All Aflame broke his shoulder and was killed. Jockeys Kurtsinger & Meade miraculously escaped injury.

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