Sport: Big Day

Every New England deacon ought to see Derby day to learn what sort of world this is he lives in. Man is a sporting as well as a praying animal.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Last week, for the first time in history, Derby day was a double feature.

In England, citizens bet an estimated $40 million on their 164th Derby. With gas rationing eased, they hauled out ancient crates and cluttered the 90-mile road from London to Newmarket with traffic jams. Seam-busting race trains pulled out of Liverpool Station. Newmarket (the Derby is run at Epsom Downs in peacetime) was jammed with over 50,000 fans —including the King & Queen and thousands of G.I.s taking in their first Derby.

Sir Eric Ohlson’s big brown Dante, both a sentimental and a practical (10-to-3) favorite, made the Derby his eighth victory in nine starts—by two lengths over Lord Rosebery’s Midas.

In Louisville, with most of last year’s two-year-old glamor horses benched, not even Colonel Matt Winn’s well-oiled tub-thumping machinery could make the 71st Kentucky Derby much more than just another horse race. Hoop Jr. splashed his way to a six-length victory in the richest Derby on record (winner’s value: $64,850). Second: Calumet Farm’s favored Pot o’ Luck.