Gold Plater

U.S. railbirds, thumbing their racing forms this winter, will look in vain for Mucho Gusto, a name that has brought "much pleasure" to millions of them. After ten years of campaigning, the grand old trouper, fondly known as Gus the Bus, has retired to the Kentucky farm of his owner, Mrs. Kirby Ramsey.

Mucho Gusto was no Whirlaway. But he will long be remembered as one of the truly remarkable thoroughbreds of the U.S. turf. Son of a castoff mare named Sweetheart Time and a stallion that had been sold without pedigree at the Lexington stockyards, he was reared in a small grassless paddock behind the Latonia race track. His owner, the track superintendent, sent him out to earn his oats in cheap claiming races.* The biggest purse he ever won was $5,000. Nevertheless, when his name was finally scratched last week, Mucho Gusto's record read: 63 victories in 215 starts; earnings, $102,750.

Racegoers loved Big Gus for his stout heart. Year in, year out, in the sticks as well as the big time, he asked no quarter, always gave his backers a run for their money. One summer, at Detroit, he won three races within eight days. One winter at Tropical Park he ran off with the Christmas, New Year's and Orange Bowl Handicaps on successive Saturdays. Cincinnati fans will never forget the day he outran Seabiscuit in a race at River Downs. But the biggest kick he ever gave his admirers was his performance in the Rhode Island Handicap at Narragansett Park four years ago. Setting the pace for famed War Admiral, Kentucky Derby winner the previous year, he rewrote the script by holding off the Admiral's bid until the homestretch, then, in a spine-tingling stretch duel, reached the wire close on the Admiral's heels.

For a selling plater, Big Gus has had few owners. Mrs. Ramsey, who claimed him for $3,000 when he was four years old, has lost him only twice in seven years. Once she sold him to the late Walter O'Hara, Rhode Island's race-track czar, for $7,000, but bought him back the following year--after he had earned $21,000 for the O'Hara stable. Last May Mucho Gusto was claimed for $1,700 but the Ramseys reclaimed him two months later.

Last week, while Old Gus was enjoying his well-earned reward in the Kentucky bluegrass, New York Columnist H. I. Phillips echoed the sentiments of fellow railbirds in his Sun Dial:

. . . The Alsabs and the Whirlaways,

The Shut Outs and their kind-- They get the headlines and the fame-- And that I do not mind; But Mucho Gusto gets my vote

(A thing he doesn't need) I think of him when some folks talk "Improvement of the breed."

*Started primarily for the purpose of equalizing competition among second-rate horses, claiming races (in which any starter may be bought for a sum fixed beforehand) have become a major medium of horse trading.

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