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Show YOU would think, at the rather ripe age of 81, that a fellow would be looking backward through his memories of big days and great years. But Colonel Matt Winn insists on looking forward. We tried to get him to tell us about that first Kentucky Ken-tucky Derby in 1875, just 68 years ago, when the Colonel was a kid of 13. "You must have gotten a big thrill from watching Aristides win that first Derby," I said. "Or can you remember about it?" "I can remember everything about It," the Colonel said. "Sixty-eight years back isn't so long ago. That was a good Derby. But wait till you see our 1943 special. That will be the one." "How is the walking between New York and Louisville?" I asked him. "Very good," Colonel Winn said. "I might add excellent. You ought to leave about three weeks ahead, allowing al-lowing for 30 miles a day. Maybe a little longer! But you will find . -K,. . , . I L ? ".j v ' 1 COL. MATT WINN good roads. You will see a beautiful countryside. You can look at flares of dogwood blooms and hear birds singing in the April maples. You can also take along a form sheet. You can read about Count Fleet Occupation, Oc-cupation, Ocean Wave and possibly some 18 starters." "Thirty miles a day," I whispered. "I can already hear my old dogs barking after two days. Did you ever read Masefleld "On Growing Old"? I asked. "Who has to grow old?" the Colonel Colo-nel growled. "What did he say about it?" "Stay with me, beauty, while the fire is dying. My dogs and I are now too old for roving." Getting There "Did you know," Colonel Winn continued, "that racing lovers in England and Scotland have frequently frequent-ly started three weeks ahead to see the English Derby? And they walked all the way, hundreds of miles. Of course, this wouldn't apply to anyone any-one needed in any form of war work. We intend to see that no oil or rubber rub-ber will be used. But there will be many Kentuckians who will either walk to the track or come by wagons, wag-ons, buggies and street cars." "I can tell you, honestly, that I am not thinking in terms of attendance attend-ance or receipts. The thought of losing money doesn't bother me a bit. Anyone can get discouraged and quit. But we need all the color we can get today, some outside interests in-terests for thousands of people to think about in odd moments. "The Kentucky Derby is something some-thing more than a two-minute race. It begins building up interest weeks ahead interest among hundreds of thousands who have no chance to be at Churchill Downs in May. Count Fleet? Ocean Wave? Many others. No Novice Speaks "1 have been looking at Kentucky Derbies for exactly 68 years. There have been a lot of yesterdays packed in since 1875, when both baseball and football were young games. "Suppose everybody not directly connected with the winning war effort ef-fort had quit and called everything off? Suppose we had no racing no football no baseball no form of competitive sport left? Would that help the morale of 135,000,000 people, peo-ple, including 11,000,000 servicemen? That would mean we would stand as about the only nation in the world to be so badly flattened out. Fifty thousand at a football game in Moscow, with the Germans 30 miles away from 20,000 to 30,000 watching British soccer football only a few days ago at many parks Australia, Japan, Germany, keeping certain games going but the greatest great-est sporting nation of all time folding fold-ing up in the way of sport? "No sane person would ever advocate advo-cate any sport that Interfered In any way with the matter of winning this war. Even a half-wit knows this. "But, I say, at the age of 81, who should know what sport means to the United States, that sport, correctly cor-rectly controlled and directed, can be a helpful factor without asking any favors. "If I knew we were going to lose $100,000 on this next Derby I would still be in favor of holding the race. Please believe me." Colonel, we do. |