Scorecard

Two years ago, before his 100th birthday, Amos Alonzo Stagg said he would like to be remembered only "as an honest man." Well, the honest man died the other day, and by a curious coincidence the account of his death knocked headlines on the front page of The New York Times with that of ex-King Farouk of Egypt. Words describing Farouk in the adjacent column were "profligate," "avaricious," "obese" and "glutton." Farouk was dead at 45. When Lon Stagg was twice that he was still mowing his lawn and running laps around the fig trees out back.

THE HEALING WATERS

As the Rio Grande flows south through New Mexico, its water is overused to the point where it becomes too thick to drink and too thin to plow and ofttimes just disappears underground, dead tired. When it gets opposite Sunland Park near El Paso, however, the water is pumped up into a 30-acre infield lake and is worked over again: it serves ornamental and emergency fire-fighting purposes, is used for daily water-skiing shows, and occasional religious groups wade in for mass baptismal rites. Now they are training horses in it.

George Rancich, president of Sunland and a Thoroughbred breeder, saw that horses were being taken for ocean dips at Del Mar, Calif., so he urged trainers to try his lake. In swimming, he reasoned, a horse develops tremendous lung power and uses all the muscles required in a race without pounding delicate hoofs, ankles and tendons. "Furthermore, the high salt content soothes tired legs. The animals will love it."

One of the first to try was Trainer Clayton Tolliver, who had his sprinter Carbolic taken to the water's edge. Carbolic sniffed at it a few times, said Tolliver, then went right in up to his neck. "He loved it." (See? Just like Rancich said.) Tolliver added a conclusion or two of his own: two minutes in the water is worth a two-mile gallop, and swimming provides a "refreshing mental change for the horse." As for practical pari-mutuel application, proof is still wanting. The salt water of the Pacific did not help Silky Sullivan one drop when he stepped onto the track against Calumet's Tim Tam. The Scoundrel, owned by Kjell Qvale, splashed around all last year in a private pool in an effort to strengthen himself for a comeback. Having failed that, The Scoundrel is now at stud in Kentucky, high and dry.

FORTISSIMO!
A survey was made here last week on Europe's new breed of super police cars—Porsches, Alfa Romeos, Ferraris—which are supposed to make the highways unsafe for fleeing criminals. We now have the first return on the new breed's capabilities. A few days ago Rome's police Ferrari 3000 gave an English Jaguar a head start out of the city onto the Autostrada del Sole, where they both opened up. At the first toll station the Ferrari got the Jaguar cold. There were extenuating circumstances, however. The Jag was burdened with $160,000 in stolen paintings, and its driver did not have the exact change.

OUT AT HOME

It was on the last day of the moose-hunting season that a middle-aged man from Minnesota, call him Smith, wounded a moose and followed it a mile and a half into the Ontario bush to complete the kill. By then it was too late in the day to haul it back, and when a storm blew in the hunter asked the Department of Lands and Forests for more time to bring the moose out. A week later, Smith rounded up help and with four sleds started for the moose. They spent that night stuck in the snow in weather 54� below zero, but eventually they were able to move the animal out of the bush to the shores of a small lake seven miles from Smith's station wagon.

Bad weather struck again, and for a week bush travel was impossible. When the weather finally cleared, Smith hired a helicopter to lift the moose to the nearest road. Ropes holding it under the copter broke, and the moose fell 150 feet, crashing through the ice of a lake. Smith and his helpers somehow fished the moose out, cut it in two and tied it on top of the car. A butcher cut and wrapped the meat and stacked it in the station wagon. Smith headed home. There at last, he went to unload the meat. It was gone. Stolen.

BRRREAKTHROUGH
Japan has only one racing circuit but is the world's leading producer of motorcycles (1.8 million in 1964). Us Hondas, Suzukis and Yamahas have held four out of the six class titles in Grand Prix racing for the past three years, and all together last year they accounted for $95 million worth of motorbikes sold in the U.S., where "you meet the nicest people on a Honda." Nice people back in Japan are completely oriented to motorcycle transport—they got that way scrambling out of the path of careening Hondas in Tokyo—and now Emperor Hirohito has purchased an entire fleet for the use of his Imperial Household Police and guests. A fleet of Hondas? No, papa-san. The new machines are three times the size of the largest Japanese models. They were made in Milwaukee, by Harley-Davidson.