Openest Derby

The last wartime Kentucky Derby (1918) launched the career of a great U.S. race horse: Willis Sharpe Kilmer's Exterminator (Old Bones), who went on to win 50 out of 100 races, earn more than a quarter of a million dollars. Among the 15 three-year-olds who went to the post at Churchill Downs last week, none could hold a hoof to Exterminator. But this year's Derby drew nearly three times as many spectators (80,000), was worth four times as much ($64,000) to the winner.

Missing were the private carfuls of big spenders, the planeloads of Hollywood merry-go-rounders and the toney tipplers who have made Derby Day an uproarious Kentucky Mardi Gras. Instead, local folks, with boom money in their jeans, jostled around wide-eyed as at a county fair --many seeing the Derby for the first time.

They saw the richest Derby of all time. Reason: it was the "openest" field in years and nearly every owner of a likely candidate was willing to risk the final $500 starting fee. However, the crowd settled on a favorite: Mrs. Payne Whitney's entry of Devil Diver and Shut Out. Devil Diver had not finished out of the money in 13 starts. Shut Out, son of the late, great Equipoise, had been worthy and unworthy of his name. Eddie Arcaro, Mrs. Whitney's contract rider who was itching to win his third Derby, was hard put to decide which to ride. He finally chose the Diver.

But the smartest jockey in the business soon found that he was on the wrong horse. When he started to make his move, the Diver didn't seem to have what it takes. Shut Out did. With Jockey Wayne Wright up, the lesser regarded of the Whitney pair was up with the front runners from the drop of the flag. On the home turn, when the pacemaker, With Regards, began to falter, Shut Out shot in front. Then, in the last quarter, standing off the challenges of Alsab and Valdina Orphan, Shut Out saved the day for Mrs. Whitney. Devil Diver finished sixth.

Said Jockey Wright, who had never been on Shut Out's back until the morning of the race: "It's the same old thing; every time a jockey gets a chance between two like that, he picks the wrong one."

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