Would William Woodward's Granville, favorite at 2-to-1, have speed and courage enough to repeat the victories of his sire, Gallant Fox, and Omaha, by the same sire? Or would bad racing luck—his jockey was thrown at the start of the Kentucky Derby; Bold Venture beat him by a nose in the Preakness—cost him this race too? Ten horses, bunched in a feathery cloud of dust, swung into the last turn, and Jockey Jimmy Stout on Granville made his bid. Granville caught the leader, John Hay Whitney's Mr. Bones. Then down the stretch, while 35,000 people shouted, he outran his own bad luck. Mr. Bones was two and a half lengths back at the finish, Hollyrood was third.
That, last week, was the Arlington Classic, feature race of the 30-day meeting at the Midwest's greatest race track. Purse for the eighth running of the Classic was $35,000. That the Arlington Classic will eventually be worth $100,000 and the most celebrated horse race in the world was the proud prospect offered to Chicago last week by the Arlington Park Jockey Club's Founder John Daniel Hertz. Discussing the track's policy and progress, Mr. Hertz announced that since 1929 Arlington Park has repaid all but $700,000 of the $5,000,000 debt it incurred seven years ago. When the $700,000 is written off, Arlington Park, only non-profit race track in the U. S., will put its surplus into plant improvements, richer prizes. When prizes reach a reasonable limit, Chicago racing will turn over $500,000 a year to charity.
For the unique generosity of the Arlington Park Jockey Club Chicago is indebted, not to the desire of its members to make a social splash, but, indirectly, to Racketeer Al Capone. Arlington Park was built in 1927, the year Illinois racing was legalized, by a California promoter named H. D. ("Curly") Brown. It lost money. In 1929 Capone offered to buy the track for $1,500,000. Promoter Brown jumped at the offer. Because the deal might well have meant the end of Illinois horse racing, Mr. Hertz, whose Reigh Count had won the Kentucky Derby in 1928, asked him to call it off. Brown offered to sell the track to Sportsman Hertz for $2,500,000 if he could raise the money in 24 hours. It took Mr. Hertz just 20 minutes to extract the $2,500,000 from a group of civic-minded Chicagoans like Warren Wright, Otto Lehmann, Silas Strawn, Leonard Florsheim, Charles A. McCulloch.
What had started as an enterprise of civic pride went on the same way. Members of the club agreed to take no profits from the track, put $2,500,000 more into improvements. Arlington Park became to Chicago's five race tracks what Belmont Park is to New York City's four. In 1931, its best season, $18,000,000 was wagered in 30 days. What improvements to make after purses have been raised may be a problem. The track already has the largest grandstand in the U. S., an "eye in the sky" to photograph close finishes at the rate of 165 frames a second, an electric totalizator to flash changing pari-mutuel odds on every race, a public address system, a polo field in the infield.