Screenland (Nov 1935-Apr 1936)

74 SCREENLAND The Horses Co 'Round and 'Round not," Bing told me. "I've no intention of making money out of them. I'm far more interested in breeding horses than I am in racing them." But just the same Bing in his old cap and gray sweater and baggy pants never misses a day at the track; he's there at early dawn brushing down his horses, feeding them oats, timing them on the track, and gabbing with the jockeys who think he's one swell guy. Bing has promised $500 to the jockey who brings in the most winners this season. The boys say that in a year or maybe two his youngsters— Double Trouble, Friend Andy, (he named this one after Andy Devine), and Lady Lakeside — will be right up there in the money class. "Aren't they cute?" And Bing pointed to his young hopefuls with fatherly pride. "And they're natural-born actors, too. The minute they step out on that track they want to take bows. That's the reason they can't win a race, they're so busy bowing to the judges before the race that they never get started in time. I'm trying to teach them to take their bows after the race." Bing, of course, out of loyalty to the "cute" little things, has to bet on them whenever they run, and his family usually does, too, but they are getting pretty annoyed about it all. " W e haven't had a winner in a year," one of his brothers told me. "Zombie and Miss Flip and Saragon are simply eating tons of oats, and if they are requested to run in a race you'd think we were insulting them. Dixie, (Mrs. Bing Crosby), suggested that Bing take all his eight horses and run them in the same race without any outsiders and then we'd be bound to have a winner. That's probably the only way we'll ever get one." Well, Bing's got the right idea, I guess, but the day I risked two bucks on Khayyam and he poked along as if he had from now until next Christmas to finish the mile, I felt great sympathy with the Crosby family, and I didn't think Khayyam was so cute, either. There's nothing so cheering as a winner. Connie Bennett still owns Rattlebrains, who is still a bad horse though he did manage to get in the money once last year, though no one is quite sure how it happened. He's definitely typed as an alsoran. Connie, as you know, is quite the Upper Crust and just-like-that with the Vanderbilts, so she always plays the entries from the Whitney and Vanderbilt stables, and usually wins. Those snooty horses, worse luck, are much better than the picture nags who are always showing their teeth for the photographers. Joan Blondell was a riot her first day at the track with Dick Powell. Joan knows from nothing about horses except the kind who used to pull beer trucks in Brooklyn when she was a baby, (Joan isn't at all Upper Crust), and she managed to ask the most embarrassing questions about their home life. It was Joan who made that classic remark that caused the snobby Turf Club to gasp in horror. "I think," said Joan, "that I will play that belle all the way across the nose." Well, while Dick was concentrating on hunches Joan went through the official program for the day and picked out all the horses with names that amused her and proceeded to play them all afternoon, and would you believe it, won a tidy sum. Who the owner was, who the trainer was, who the jockey was, what the horse had done before or would ever do again, mattered not to Joanie. She played Minnie Mae, Bartering Kate, Gertie, Southern Belle, Mama's Choice, Alary Jane, and others of that ilk, simply went into Continued from page 29 hysterics over their names, and cashed in heavily, while poor Dick, who was playing hunches, decided that maybe after all he wasn't the psychic type. Of course that Irishman, Pat O'Brien, is at the track all the time, and any horse named Murphy, or O'Reilly, or Cassidy gets the O'Brien dough right on the nose. Pat's wife Eloise is very sentimental about Pat's name and whenever she can find a horse named Pat she plays it. One day she won good odds on Brown-Eyed Pat, and then the very next day she won again on Pat W. "Darling," she shouted to her rather glum spouse who wasn't being done right by the Irish, "Can I pick 'em! You have a lucky name, all you have to do is play it." The next day Pat found a horse Paul Kelly shows his polo pony the statuette the actor is awarding the fan who picked the name, Kelly MacKaye, for the horse. named Pretty Pat and remembering Eloise's advice he played Pretty Pat right across the board. Pretty Pat was lost in a cloud of dust and so was Pat's twenty-five bucks. Fred Astaire is just about as batty over horses as Bing, though Fred hasn't bought himself a stable yet. However, when he retires from the screen that's exactly what he plans to do. Strange to say, he doesn't like to ride horses, but he loves to pet them, and watch them run. Last summer when he finished "Top Hat" and wanted to "get away from it all" he and his wife left for a quiet hide-out on Long Island, but they were only there for a day or so when Fred began packing feverishly and away they went to Saratoga to see the horses go 'round and 'round, Yo-Ho. Fred is so goofy on the subject of horses that anyone who can talk horses to him immediately becomes one of his best friends — which is a little trying to his Social Register wife. Fred usually plays "tips" — he too is just-like-that with the Whitneys and Vanderbilts, but he isn't at all class conscious about his tips and he'll play one from an unknown tout just as quickly as he will one from Jock Whitney. Dinner in the Astaire home, it seems, is just a series of tips via phone. And just as you'd suspect, Ginger Rogers and Jeanette MacDonald are entirely feminine in the way they pick 'em. Ginger arrived at the track with husband Lew Ayres one fine afternoon with every intention in the world of reading "Racing Form" and several charts and picking horses with great care and precision so she would be a credit to Lew who takes things seriously. But she happened to notice in the second race that Lady Peenzie was running. And that threw her for a laugh. No horse should ever be named Lady Peenzie, it sounded like something just too whimsy, too silly for words. Without even consulting Racing Form, or the Consensus of Opinion, or Lew Ayres she raced over to the window and placed a bet on Lady Peenzie, of the De Pooh Peenzies. Her ladyship placed and Ginger was in twenty bucks. "Hmmmm, Royalty," said Ginger who catches on quickly, so she proceeded to place bets on Prince Abbot, Seraphic Knight, Duke's King, and all kinds of princesses— and did she have fun and cash it on the tote tickets. She could hardly wait to get back to the track the following Saturday to play Royalty again, but alack and alas, Lady Roma is still roaming, Lady Bowman took so long to get around the track that she sent postcards to her friends, and French Princess hasn't been heard from in days. In disgust Ginger played Communist, collected some of her losses, and called it a day. Sweet Mystery romped in home for Jeanette MacDonald, who played her out of loyalty to "Naughty Marietta," Nelson Eddy, and those long hours of rehearsal of Sweet Mystery of Life. She also did all right on Sweet Chariot, which used to be her favorite song when she was a child. But Moonburn did her wrong. "Not my type of song," said Jeanette. "I should have known better!" Another enthusiastic horseman and owner is Joe E. Brown. Joe is at the track every day and his two horses, Barnsley and Little Lad, have placed in many races though they haven't won to date. Mrs. Joe E. Brown didn't think much of Joe's selection of horseflesh, (neither did I — Little Lad played dead the day I was on him), so she bought herself a race horse and named it Santa Monica and bet the January house money on it. Santa Monica didn't seem to know what is was all about. A very vague sort of horse. Of course the most publicized horse rt Santa Anita is Beverly Hills, the ex-Clark Gable horse. Beverly Hills, through some kind of a fluke — the other horses all dropped dead or something — won once last year at magnificent odds, and Clark's loyal supporters rallied round the nag, though she hasn't done a thing in months. Clark has to take a terrific ribbing from his pals over the molassses-in-January attitude of his pet. As a matter of fact there is a big match on at the Metro studio now with all the directors, stars, and technicians taking bets. Clarence Brown, the director, has bet Clark that the antique car used in "Ah, Wilderness"— (It's a 1906 Stanley steamer) — could beat Beverly Hills any day, and Clark has taken the bet. Well, if that ole hoss lets that ole tank beat him he might just as well give up. To date Clark has only been to the track one time, a Saturday when Beverly Hills was scheduled to run in the fourth race, and immediately the movie contingent spied Clark there for the first time during the season the rumor got around that it was "fixed" for Beverly Hills to win,