Wonderhorse

Alsab, wonderhorse of 1941, won't be three years old until April 15. But on New Year's Day, birthday of all U.S. thoroughbreds, Sab came of equine age with a birthday party fitting a crown prince.

Like a fairy tale goes the story of Alsab, son of a onetime race horse named Good Goods and a $90 mare. As a yearling, he looked so worthless he was knocked down for only $700 at the Saratoga auction sales. Last week, in front of the insect-proof cage that surrounds Sab's stall at Hialeah Park, his owner, Lawyer Albert Sabath of Chicago, set up champagne for hundreds of two-legged guests, drank a toast to the colt that has already won $110,610 for him, the colt with whom he would not part for a quarter of a million. For Alsab is considered the most promising racehorse since Man o' War.

Man o' War lost only one race (to Upset) in his career; Sab has already lost seven. But Big Red's whole career consisted of only 21 races, while Sab, in one year of racing, started 22 times, ran on eleven different tracks in seven different States. Moreover, he has run farther and faster than Man o' War did as a two-year-old. His 1:16 for 6 1/2 furlongs is only one-fifth of a second over the world's record set by four-year-old Snark in 1937; his 1:35 2/5 for a mile is one second over the world's mark set by another four-year-old, the late great Equipoise, in 1932.

Many a juvenile champion has later proved to be a flash in the pan. But horsemen have a hunch that Sab will be even more remarkable as a three-year-old than he was at two. In the winter book for next spring's Kentucky Derby, he was quoted last week a 3-to-1 favorite, shortest odds ever quoted so early in the year.

Chuckled Trainer August ("Sarge") Swenke, World War I hero and one of the turf's inveterate gamblers, who persuaded Lawyer Sabath to put out $700 for the Good Goods colt: "Alsab's going to make the old Sarge a great trainer."

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