Over Aintree Meadow

For the 101st running of the Grand National Steeplechase in England last week, 250,000 people swarmed over the vast reach of meadow south of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal near Aintree, where 37 fine horses faced the grueling 4-mile, 856-yard, twice-around chase over 30 time-honored jumps of thorn, gorse, fir, spruce and water, each hoary with legend.

The professional gamblers professed to like Dorothy Paget's Kilstar, an 8-year-old brown gelding which Miss Paget bought last year for $1,500 from a cavalry officer who could no longer afford to keep him. Kilstar stood firm at 8-1, but England's shillings rained down on H. C. McNally's Royal Danieli, which last year lost by a mere neck to Battleship. By race time the odds on Royal Danieli had been backed down from 20-1 to 10-1. A decent bet, too, but not over popular, was Merseyside-Irishman Sir Alexander Maguire's Workman, last year's tired third. Workman stood at 100-8, just a shade better liked than Royal Mail, 100-7, the only former winner in the field. A tempting long shot was Capt. L. E. Scott Briggs's MacMoffat, at 25-1. Another was Sir Humphrey de Trafford's Under Bid, 28-1.

The start was a beauty, but so tightly packed was the field at the first jump that three horses went down for keeps. At the fifth jump Royal Mail faltered, and Under Bid flashed out in front. Into Becher's Brook (socalled because 100 years ago a Captain Becher came a cropper and dived under its surface in fear of the flying hoofs above him) the great Royal Danieli fell, dunking most of England's shilling bets.

Kilstar was jumping like a horse in a hunting print. Over the treacherous right-angle Canal Turn and past Valentine's spruce-bunkered brook it was Kilstar and Under Bid. Together they cleared the 15-foot water jump in front of the stands, and roared into the second trip around the course. But back of the leaders, out of the crush, Workman was running easily under the crafty hand of Irish Tim Hyde, a veteran of many years of chasing, a gentleman jockey turned pro. He was following the plan the illustrious George Stevens used to bring in his record five winners, before he was tossed to ignominious death in 1871 by a cob he was riding home over a rocky byroad. Stevens used to hang back until most of the field had harried each other into the ditches and hedges, then he would ride triumphantly in over the carnage. Wily Tim Hyde guided Workman that way until Becher's and the Canal Turn had taken their toll on the second round. Then, when the field was at Valentine's Brook again, he nosed Workman in among the leaders.

Irishmen hailed the bounding green silks of Tim Hyde with a mighty roar. Merseysiders went wild. An Irish priest shouted encouragement in Gaelic. For Workman was Irish-bred by a Cork pubkeeper, Irish-trained in Kildare by Tim Hyde himself, Irish-owned by Sir Alex, a sometime Meath man from Navan who had put a bet on his jumper for the benefit of Navan's 10,000 citizens. Close behind Workman came 'Captain Briggs's MacMoffat, with Jockey Alder in primrose silks. As they pressed on, Kilstar blundered four jumps from home, and from then on it was nip and tuck between the green and the primrose. Over the last fence soared Workman, half a stride ahead of MacMoffat, and galloped into the stretch.

"Paddy's got it," the Irish and the Merseysiders exulted, and they were right. The Paddy horse breezed in three lengths ahead of MacMoffat without the whip, with Kilstar a trailing third among the eleven finishers. It was the first all-Irish winner since Troytown's year, 1920. Tim Hyde grinned a wide, toothless grin. Said he to Workman: "Twas a marvelous race, me boy!"

To ten U. S. holders of tickets on Workman in the Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes drawing, it was a marvelous race indeed. All but the four who had sold half interests to soft-soaping, sixtyish Sidney Freeman (representing Douglas Stuart, Ltd., last week in Manhattan) stood to collect $141,000 each.

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