(See front cover)
¶Colonel Edward Riley Bradley's Bazaar came into the stretch a length ahead of the field in the Saranac Handicap. With a ghostlike rush, Jockey Wayne Wright brought Kievex up on the outside of the track, beat Bazaar to the wire by a head. Three days later, Colonel Bradley was consoled when Boxthorn won the Saratoga Special.
¶Last summer Elizabeth J. West, 18-year-old daughter of Mrs. James Madison Austin, who owns the Catawba Farm, got one of Wise Counsellor's colts as a present from her mother. She named him Supreme Court, helped to break and train him. Last week, Daughter Elizabeth's stable won its first race when Supreme Court nosed out Polly Hundred in the Saratoga Sales Stakes.
¶Governor Lehman saw Jockeys Don Meade and Silvio Coucci each win three races in one afternoon. Jockey Coucci's mounts were Fidelis, Deduce and General Farley, named for the Postmaster General who arrived later in the week.
¶At a track notorious for reversals of form, six races on one afternoon's program were won by the favorites: Maine Chance, Spoilt Beauty, My Boss, Torfrida, New Pin and Ouragan.
Such events as these at Saratoga Springs, N. Y. last week made most of the conversation in the lobbies of the town's heroically hideous mid-Victorian hotels, full for the first time since 1929.
Games of roulette, crap, faro and birdcage at elaborate nightclubs tinkled pleasantly without interruption from the law. The William K. Vanderbilts came and went in their private car. The yearling sales, held every evening for a fortnight, began in a small, brightly-lighted outdoor arena across the road from the racetrack. The liveliest U. S. racing season in 20 years was nearing its peak.
This week will be held the 65th running of the $25,000 Travers Stakes, oldest horse-race in the U. S. When the Saratoga meeting opened, it looked as if the Travers would bring together Mrs. Isabel Dodge Sloane's 3-year-old champion Cavalcade and Joseph E. Widener's Peace Chance, winner of the Belmont Stakes. These horses have not met since the Kentucky Derby. Last fortnight Peace Chance was withdrawn because of a wrenched knee. Last week Cavalcade was disappointingly scratched also, when his trainer decided a bruise on his right front foot would not heal in time to permit him to run. This left the race open to such candidates as Morton L. Schwartz's Observant and Cornelius Vanderbilt (''Sonny") Whitney's Roustabout.