Stay of Execution

When the pick of the nation's three-year-olds lined up for the Kentucky Derby a year ago, the name of Your Host was on every horseman's lips. The white-stockinged California sprinter, the favorite at post time, ran out of gas after leading for a mile, and finished ninth. But after that, he seldom ran out of the money. Your Host came back to beat such horses as Hill Prince and Ponder, had earned $384,795 for Movieman-Owner William Goetz when he broke an elbow bone in a spill at Santa Anita early this year.

Owner Goetz kept hoping the vets could save Your Host, even though the injury was almost impossible to treat. But the chestnut colt, hobbling painfully about his stall on three legs (his right foreleg swollen and foreshortened), grew steadily worse. Last week, after the veterinarians agreed that there was nothing more to be done, Your Host was condemned to die.

But at week's end the crippled horse got a stay of execution. Lloyd's of London, which insured Your Host for $250,000, paid the money to Goetz and took possession. Lloyd's intention: to try a little longer to save Your Host, in the hope of putting him to stud.

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