The Wilmington Morning Star

THE SPORTS TRAIL
By Whitney Martin
NEW YORK, Jan. 19.-(AP)--Our good friend and former colleague, Mason Brunson, is homesick for the horse tracks, a circumstance in which he has plenty of company. In fact, even the horses are homesick for the horse tracks since Florida discovered you can't improve the breed without $2 bets.

Anyway, there is a more pointed reason for Brunson's homesickness. He is now Marine Sergeant Brunson, stationed in Bermuda where, he says, even the famed carriage horses are showing the effects of the war. Before entering the service he was an Associated Press staff man at Baltimore, where he caught the horse fever at Pimlico and near-by tracks.

Right now all he has left is memories, which finally bubbled over onto paper, and his letter gives an idea of the minds of our service men, no matter where they are, turn to their favorite sport.

"There's just the faintest reminder of a track on Bermuda," he writes. "Several years ago a group of optimists spent about a half million dollars trying to convert a marsh into a race track near the Tennis Stadium Station. The venture failed and the site is now known as 'Marsh Folly.' It's haunted by ghosts of nags that never reached the wire.

"The last race I saw was Alsab's great victory in the 1942 Preakness which Sid Feder and I worked together. That was one I'll never forget, like the 1938 match between Seabiscuit and War Admiral when I worked my first race with old Orlo (Hoofbeats) Robertson.

"But at least we Marines can talk about horse racing. It's one of the favorite topics over our beers at the post exchange. The most rabid fan here is Albert Smith, of Washington, D. C. He has seen them all from Man O' War to Walter Haight, horse and man. He's always arguing with Little Johnny Miller of Somerville, Pa., another platoon sergeant over the size and layout of the track at Shanghai. They served in China together.

"Little John is emphatic about one thing - the most unpredictable nag ever to set foot on a race track, including Hellfly and The Chief, is a Mongolian pony.

"I'd like to see another race like the 1939 Preakness, when Challedon, my favorite horse, exploded the Johnstown myth in the mud. I kept hoping Big Pete would make a successful comeback, but now I hear he finally has been retired to stud bless his honest heart.

"I'll never forget Lou Schaefer, Chally's trainer, sitting on an up-turned bucket outside the W. O. Brann barn that morning, looking up at the sky and whispering: 'Send 'er down, David', while rain streamed down his face. Lou prayed for mud for Chally and got it.

"Nor will I forget Ciencia, the fine little filly trained by Mary Hirsch, lying down in her stall and taking a nap before the race. As Abe Gibbs of the Baltimore Sun remarked, Ciencia must have slept all through the race, for she finished a drowsy last.

"So many of the sleepers I bet on do the same!

"It's been six months now since I've smelled printer's ink or heard the teletypes jabber and, brother I really miss those familiar odors and noises.

"Some of these days I'm coming back. And when I do I'm heading straight for Pimlico, my favorite track, if Bo'sun Alf Vanderbilt, Uncle Matt Daiger and Dave Woods still are holding forth there."

Well Sarge, we all hope it will be soon, and that the horses will be running not only at Pimlico but anywhere else they are wanted. They can't run some places now because of the gas and rubber shortage, which sounds funny, at that. We always thought all they needed was hay.