Horse v. Doctor

Summerville is a winter resort in South Carolina. At its paint-thirsty town hall last week, under a blazing sun that sent the temperature to 110DEG, two of its residents -- a Finnish-born, 40-year-old doctor named Arne Suominen and an eleven-year-old race horse named Duke--began a 40-mile race.* The course: to Charleston (27 miles), then 13 miles around The Citadel's foot-racing track.

Along the steaming highway man and beast jogged, followed by a caravan of 100 cars. Duke--ridden by a no-lb. jockey the first 14 miles, a lighter boy the next 14, and finally a little girl -- was trotted for eight minutes, walked for four and rubbed down every ten miles at the request of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The doctor, who fasted for eight days prior to the race to "get the poison out of his system," had no S. P. C. A. to protect him. He just loped along, stopping now & then for orange juice or an oily rubdown.

First the horse took the lead, then the doctor. Approaching Charleston, the doc tor was three miles behind the horse.

Round & round the cindered track they plodded, before $65 worth of paying spectators, the doctor coming within a fifth of a mile of closing the gap.

Doctor Suominen once ran 100 miles from Chicago to Milwaukee (stopping only for orange juice), once ran 1,000 miles in one of C. C. Pyle's famed "bunion Derbies." But last week, after six hours, the hot pavement had so blistered his feet that he had to quit with only six more miles to go. Duke, still going strong, won by default.

Unlike most exhibitionists, neither doctor nor horse received anything for their effort last week (except possibly a little publicity for the doctor's health resort). To the Finnish Relief and the Red Cross went the $65 gate receipts taken in at The Citadel campus, the $50 the doctor wagered and some $200 in local side bets.

* Marathon distance: 26 miles.

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