Who D'ya Like?

The sportswriters' first choice is Alsab (TIME, Jan. 12)--despite the fact that he has failed to win a race in six starts this year. Their second choice is Requested, the Texas colt that beat Alsab in Florida's Flamingo Stakes last February and beat Apache, pride of Broadway, in New York's Wood Memorial last week. Kentucky hard-boots like the looks of a pair of colts owned by Mrs. Payne Whitney: Shut Out, a worthy son of the late great Equipoise, and Devil Diver, rated the most promising Whitney youngster since Twenty Grand. Some diehards still think that Warren Wright's in-again, out-again Sun Again will be another Whirlaway.

This Saturday, when a dozen three-year-olds parade to the post for the 68th running of the Kentucky Derby, the favorite will probably be one of these colts. But many a wise old railbird, well aware that the post-time favorite has won the Derby only 33 times out of 67, will hitch his money to a dark horse--maybe With Regards, the rheumatic $800 nag that won the Arkansas Derby last month; or Hollywood, a big Irish-bred colt imported by Texas Cattleman Emerson Woodward last fall and quoted at odds of 100-to-1 in the Derby winter book before he won an impressive race in the mud at Kentucky's Keeneland.

Other Derby-goers--perhaps not so wise as the wise old railbirds nor so gullible as the tip-sheet students--will put their two bucks on the smartest jockey in the field. That title belongs to Kentucky's Eddie Arcaro, leading stakes winner last year and winner of two of this year's richest races: the Widener and the Flamingo. This week Arcaro will ride either Devil Diver or Shut Out. If he boots home the winner, he will deserve to be ranked with Earl Sande and Negro Isaac Murphy, the only two jockeys ever to ride three Kentucky Derby winners. Arcaro won with Lawrin in 1938, with Whirlaway last year.

After May 31 the U.S. manufacture of fishing tackle will cease for the duration. Only exception: fish hooks, which can be continued at a rate equal to one-half last year's output (some 100,000,000--four times that many were imported from Norway, England, Germany and Japan). Said George Moore, chief of the War Production Board's sporting-goods unit: "We want to take care of the fellow who goes out to catch himself a mess of fish every once in a while."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.