"I think Brevity will win the Derby," growled Colonel Edward Riley Bradley, four-time Kentucky Derby winner, watching his two entries finish a disappointing workout at Churchill Downs one day last week. Thousands of other people thought so too. In the Florida Derby last March, Joseph E. Widener's bay colt of doubtful paternity* had equaled the world record for a mile and a furlong. Of the six races Brevity had entered, he had won five. With a winter's training in Florida behind him, the handsome three-year-old was in perfect trim.
To watch the 62nd running of the nation's greatest horse race and incidentally to make Brevity one of the rankest favorites (2-to-5) in Derby history, 70,000 people had jammed Louisville. There was a goodly turnout of the 17,000 Kentucky Colonels and Admirals whose titles had been abolished and then suddenly restored five days before the race. There was retired Baseballer Babe Ruth, whose pro fessional springtime duties had never permitted him to get to the Derby before.
There was a formal convention of U. S. hoboes. There were hundreds of celebrities, like the Brazilian Ambassador, Post master General Farley, Marshall Field, Cinemactress Constance Bennett, who emerged from 250 private railroad cars and made their way to shabby old Churchill Downs. At the track Owner Widener shared his box with bright-eyed Sir Bede Clifford, Governor-General of the Bahamas, believing he had never before had so good a chance to win a Derby.
Three people disagreed with Owner Widener. One was Max Hirsch, 53-year- old horse trainer who, like Owner Widener, had in the past 20 years won almost every other U. S. horse race except the Derby. Second was his sad-eyed, 23-year-old daughter Mary, first woman ever to receive a trainer's license from The Jockey Club (TIME, April 15, 1935). "Miss Mary" was absent from Louisville last week because her own charges were running at Jamaica, L. I. But to ride her-father's Derby entry, Bold Venture, she sent her contract apprentice jockey whom she herself had trained, tiny 18-year-old Ira ("Babe") Hanford. Four days before, at Jamaica, Jockey Hanford had brought Trainer Mary Hirsch her first double vic tory.* This time, in his first appearance in a major race, he was determined to bring Trainer Max Hirsch his first Derby though Bold Venture had never before won an important stake, had earned his owner, Morton L. Schwartz, a meagre $2,500 last year.
At the post Jockey Hanford took a quick look at Brevity pawing the ground nervously while his blinkers were being adjusted. At the break the 14 horses jammed, one jockey was unseated. The crowd gasped as the favorite was nearly knocked to his knees. Another horse caromed into Bold Venture. Trailing the field, Hanford steadied him, worked up to eighth place at the quarter-mile, maneuvered Bold Venture into the lead at the half-mile. At the mile Brevity drew up alongside. The horses' necks bobbed and stretched in uni son down the stretch. But Hanford man aged to keep Bold Venture's head in front as they clipped under the wire.