Milky Wayfarer

The owners of a dozen or more U. S. race horses could have kicked themselves last week. So convinced were they that Colonel Edward Bradley's Bimelech would make their pets look like plugs, all but seven of the country's top-notch turfmen withdrew their entries for the Kentucky Derby the week before the race. Last week, when 95,000 fans crammed into Churchill Downs to watch Big Bim romp off with America's No. 1 horse race, many a rival owner had already phrased his felicitations to Colonel Bradley, too ill to watch his latest (and probably last) hopeful run.

During the first mile, Bimelech looked like a champion. He broke fast, caught up with Joseph Widener's fleet-footed Roman. Down the backstretch, he clung to Roman's heels. Coming around the far turn--where races are usually won or lost--Bradley's green & white silks flashed in front. Roman had faltered. It would be a breeze for Bimelech from now on.

But suddenly, charging up on the inside, a horse slipped between Big Bim and the rail--into the gap made by Roman's dropping back. It was Milky Way Farm's Gallahadion, with Carroll Bierman up, whom few had noticed inching his way along the rail. With powerful strides, Gallahadion pulled farther & farther away, reached the wire a length and a half ahead of Big Bim, who was desperately struggling to keep Arnold Hanger's Dit from second place.

It was several minutes before the dumfounded onlookers recovered their voices. Few had given Gallahadion even an outside chance to finish second or third. He was a colt who had never finished better than fourth as a two-year-old and had lost more races than he had won at Santa Anita last winter. Only four days before, in a mile race over the same track and with the same jockeys, Bimelech had beaten Gallahadion by almost three lengths. His owner, Chocolate Heiress Ethel Mars, decided not to go from Chicago to Louisville for the Derby, although her trainer, Roy Waldron, had phoned her that Big Bim's jockey had had to take to the whip to beat Gallahadion earlier in the week--and a horse race is a horse race.

At the Win windows the handful of betters who had backed Gallahadion were handsomely rewarded: $72.40 for $2, second largest payoff in Derby history. To Mrs. Mars went $60,000 and her first Derby cup in six tries, to Gallahadion 500 red roses.

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