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SEPTIMUS MILLER VISITS. SHEEPSHEAD BAY. Distinguished Australian Racing Man Is Much Impressed with the Sport in America. New York, September 13. Septimus Miller, president of the Victoria Racing Club, which maintains the famous Flemington course near Melbourne, Australia, is stopping a few days In this city and a day or two ago was the guest of the Coney Island Jockey Club at Sheepshead Bay. It was his first visit to an American racecourse. "This place is very impressive," he said. "I dont think I ever saw a more naturally beautiful course. This being my first visit I am necessarily unfamiliar with the details, of the way you race over here, and while I do not care to make comparisons, I find it compares favorably with Flemington. "Mr. Miller started on a pleasure trip from Australia some months ago and has been all over the western portions of this country, through the Yellowstone to Chicago, and is now en route to London. He is a retired business man and devotes most of his time to racing, having been president of the Victoria Racing Club for eleven years. He is an honorary member of the English Jockey Club and it was largely due to his influence that the starting gate that is now used on the English tracks was adopted there about eight years ago. "I am not prepared to say when the gate came into use in America," he said, "but it is my1 impression that the idea had its origin on a suburban track in Australia. Its great value at once became .apparent and I advocated it for our track., Later I made a trip to England and was called before the Jockey Club to explain it. I did so with the result that It was adopted at once. The gate you use -here is slightly different from ours; and I think is not Quite so good. Our apparatus works oh rods and flies up and out, away from the horses, it is .Impossible for a-horse to get caught in It. "Mr. Miller went to the start of one with Mars s ; which the horses au sent away. I thought there would be a disqualification after that race," he said. "That was a terribly reckless dash, that boy tpok-across the- track on pinna Ken. We could sec it plainly from the starter. s- stand and the stewards, I think, could hardly have overlooked. It. "The Flemington association is one, of the richest! in the world. According to Mr. Miller, races worth in the aggregate 00,000 arc run there every year. The Melbourne Cup Is the principal: sporting event of Australia, and It is a race in which 5,000 is added. As an evidence of the popularity of the sport, he says, all the shops close on Cup day and there is always a tenth of the population of Melbourne Ut the course. The paddock there, as at Newmarket, is called the birdcage, and a sectfou of the plut.xiesrwndlng. to the field at our tracks, fls called the hlloniprising tiers of seats above those, in the mainVgrandstaud. The Infield is called the, flat,, and the law requires that no admission be charged to this enclosure. "Mr. Miller said there was a great deal of trouble with the poolrooms in Melbourne, and that the association was not able to keep them from "getting information. . ..... "We .call the poolrooms totalizator shops," he said, "and there is a syndicate of them, controlled by a man named Wren, whom we have tried time and again to break up. They-have a sort of -system similar to the Paris mutuei, and it is the only uu-fortuuate feature of racing In the country."
