Word: middleground
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...When Middleground and Hill Prince ran one-two in the Kentucky Derby, a big, paunchy, 73-year-old man solemnly rose in his paneled office at New York's Belmont Park and drank a silent toast to himself. Five months before, John Blanks Campbell had closed the office door, sat down with his file of last year's two-year-olds and decided that Middleground would be the three-year-old to beat. In his Experimental Free Handicap weights, he rated Middleground at the top with 126 lbs., about a length better than Hill Prince...
Last week, when Jockey Eddie Arcaro and Hill Prince pounded home a length and a half ahead of Middleground in the Withers mile at Belmont, Handicapper Campbell had a word for it: "Luck plays the biggest part. I figure, guess and be damned...
...Sooner than radio listeners became of him. As he had done a year ago with Derby Winner Ponder, gravel-voiced Radio Caller Clem McCarthy overlooked Middleground's stretch rush, barely got him under the wire...
...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 the kid who'd just won the Derby...
Bettors, who had been chiefly devoting their attention to such outstanding colts as Hill Prince, Your Host, Middleground, Oil Capitol and Theory, now had to take a sharp second look at Mr. Trouble. Early this week, with the Derby five days away, his odds were down to 10-1. Those who had been lucky or smart enough to get down in the winter book at 40-1 just looked pleased...