Word: backstretchers
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...strokes, as in last week's column about little Bill Boland, the 18-year-old apprentice jockey who rode the winner of the Kentucky Derby (see SPORT): "A few minutes after the jockey room was cleared of its Derby confusion, four people [walked] down the track toward the backstretch stables. Hiking along just inside the clubhouse rail was a kid in a peaked cloth cap and leather windbreaker, with blue jeans clinging tightly to bowed legs. He carried one red rose from Middleground's blanket. The thousands who saw him pass didn't recognize...
Caught at the Tape. He was in front by a couple of yards and running strongly as the gun popped for the final lap. Then the crowd started to scream-Gehrmann was coming to life on the backstretch. He was second as he came off the turn. Twenty yards from the finish he was trailing by five feet. He gathered speed, plunged desperately, caught Wilt at the tape...
...conscience as the field entered the starting gate: "It's a little like putting Joe DiMaggio back in the game in midseason and letting him bat against good, seasoned pitchers. He might strike out." Jimmy had another bad moment when Citation broke slowly and wallowed down the backstretch eating mud from other horses' heels...
...until the last quarter-mile of a race, sensed that the climax would come early and set up a swelling roar. Then, suddenly, it was all over. With Capot saving ground on the rail, he nosed ahead on the turn. Coaltown tried but could not keep up. Down the backstretch Capot's lead lengthened to two lengths, then to four. Brooks hit Coaltown only once, got no response, and did not punish him needlessly...
Nobody did for the first half mile. But straightening out on the backstretch, Eddie Arcaro let Palestinian move up alongside Capot. It was not a real challenge; both riders had their horses under wraps. Lagging behind them was Calumet Farm's stretch-running Ponder...