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l ALTERATIONS AT SHEEPSHEAD BAY. Will Have the Longest Course with One -Turn in This Country. William K. Vanderbilt, president of the Coney Island Jockey Club, has, after an inspection of the plant witli superintendent Frank Clark, approved the plans for its improvement, which have been prepared by Schuyler L. Parsons and the executive committee of the club. Mr. Vanderbilt, who has no interest in American racing other than his holdings in the Coney Island Club, confining all of his turf interests so far as actual racing and the ownership of horses goes, to the French turf, where he maintains one of the strongest stables and also the equal of any training and breeding establishment in the world. He says, however, that France has not a race course more picturesque or belter equipped than that at Sheepshead Bay and the plans which he has amended and approved carries with it his ambition to make it the greatest race course in this or any other country. Superintendent Clark says he will have the new course ready for the meeting next June. The altered course will be one mile and three-eighths, only a furlong shorter than the big track at Belmont Park. Sheepshead Bay will be better fixed for many kinds of racing than Belmont Park. At Belmont Park the longest race possible around one turn is one mile and three-sixteenths. The new Coney Island plant will have a course of one mile and live-sixteenths with but one turn in it. As originally . laid out, the mile and a quarter at Belmont Park had but one turn, but tho. changing of the finish caused the shortening of this course to one mile and three-sixteenths. The Belmont Park management cannot get enough ground to build a good mile and a quarter course. The end of the back-stretch chute abuts upon the right of way of the Long Island Railroad. A course of one mile and live sixteenths with but one-vturn in it is had at Sheepshead Bay by straightening out the back-stretch chute and extending the upper turn. This has led to the tearing down of a number of old stables, but the Coney Island Club is so rich in laud there are many places where these stables can be rebuilt.
