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CHARLESTON RACING DATES FAR BACK. Meeting Scheduled for This Winter Will Revive Sport in Old-Time Stronghold. Charleston, S. C, November 15. With the opening of racing here on January 10 next there will come a revival of the sport in one of its earliest localities in America. The first American thoroughbreds came from the Atlantic States, and it was natural that Charleston should early have both a jockey club and a course. In the early thirties there was an abundance of raciug up and down the Atlantic Coast, and the South Carolina Jockey Club played an important part in the sport from the time of its formation. In 1S74, a comparatively recent date when considering the old American thoroughbreds, it is shown that a meeting was conducted at the Washington course of the South Carolina Jockey Club. This meeting the same year was followed by an extra meeting, which was conducted under the direction of L. A. Hitchcock, at that time one of the leading turfmen of the country. The fact that au extra meeting was necessary is evidence enough of the popularity of the sport in this state. The original meeting, in 1S74, was held on February 26, the course being an excellent one for the winter sport. The extra meeting was on March C and 9. In those days of racing at Charleston some of the turfmen, whose names arc found in any history of American racing, were L. A. Hitchcock, Jordan and Williams, Jordan and Wilson, T. G. Bacon, A. B. Lewis and Co. and Dr. Waldcn. Some of the horses that raced during the 1874 meetings over the old course were Limestone, which wou a two-mile dash over eight hurdles from Revenge; Lady Washington. Joe Johnson, then a three-.vcar-old, which was started twice the same day; Tabitha, Ellen C, Ortolan, Flower Girl and Mortgage. With the opening of other race courses in more densely populated districts the sport at Charleston died out, but tho spirit of the sport has always remained, and it is inevitable that with the return of the horses In January many of the old glories of the South Carolina Jockey Club will be revived. Racing has undergone many changes since the thirties and since the meetings of 1874, but interest in the sport is as keen now as It was then, and there would be just as glorious and memorable contests was It not that the restrictive laws in many states have been steadily narrowing the horizon for the sportsmen and their sport. It is fitting that racing should come back to this historic old city that so early welcomed the thoroughbred, and the elaborate preparations that are being made to prepare for the return of the racer promise that the revival of the sport will be notable.
