Almost as Grand National

There will be no Derby at Epsom, near London, this year. But for the Grand National Steeplechase, staged for 101 years at Aintree--"on the safe side" of England--the British Government last week lifted its ban on crowd-gathering (no more than 15,000 in one place at one time), permitted the chase to be held as usual.

Except for the predominance of khaki in the stands and air-raid instructions on the programs, there was nothing to remind 100,000 Englishmen, gathered at Aintree last week, that they were at war. Around babbling bookmakers they swarmed, slapping down shillings on the favorites: H. C. McNally's Royal Danieli (who finished just astern of Battleship two years ago), Scott Briggs's MacMoffat (runnerup to Workman last year), Dorothy Paget's Kilstar (third-place horse a year ago).

All 30 starters cleared the first jump, the second, the third. Then they began to tumble. At hair-raising Becher's Brook, Royal Danieli took the lead, kept it round the right-angle Canal Turn, over Valentine's Brook, down the backstretch, past the stands the first time around. At Becher's Brook, on the second circuit, he was still in front, with MacMoffat and James Neill's 50-to-1 shot Gold Arrow close behind. It looked as if the old Aintree jinx on favorites was not working.

On the next to the last of the 30 jumps --after leading for nearly four miles--Royal Danieli toppled, lay motionless on the emerald-green turf while Co-Favorite MacMoffat and lightly fancied Bogskar led the field past him. Neck & neck MacMoffat and Bogskar took the last fence.

Down the homestretch they galloped, long-striding Bogskar opening more & more daylight with each stride, crossing the finish line four lengths ahead of MacMoffat, ten lengths ahead of Gold Arrow.

For seven-year-old Bogskar, Irish-bred (as usual) and owned by England's Lord Stalbridge, it was the race of his young life. In his first start over the toughest steeplechase course in the world (4 1/2 miles), he had posted the second fastest time in its history, only one-fifth of a second slower than the record (9 min., 20| sec.) set by Golden Miller in 1934. "It was like riding in a wheel chair," said Jockey Marvin Jones, a 20-year-old Welshman who had never seen the awesome Aintree course before, had been given 48 hours leave from his duties in the Royal Air Force to ride for Lord Stalbridge, whose regular jockey fell ill.

Among 13 horses who failed to finish were the two U. S.-owned entries: Poloist Louis Stoddard Jr.'s Milano and Poloist Jock Whitney's National Night, who, none the less proud because he was riderless, galloped across the finish line in front of Bogskar (see cut).

The Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes, because of wartime mail restrictions, collected only $700,000 instead of the customary $10,000,000. Only two tickets were drawn on each starting horse instead of the customary dozen or more. In the U. S., only one person held a ticket on Bogskar: an ex-Bronx prize fighter named August Ruggiere, who hit the jackpot for $105,000 last week just as he was beginning to wonder where his next hamburger was coming from.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.