Plan Launched for the Revival of Racing at St. Louis, Daily Racing Form, 1914-10-30

article


view raw text

I ! PLAN LAUNCHED FOR THE REVIVAL OF RACING AT ST. LOUIS j 4 : i St. Louis, Mo., October 20. The first move for the revlvial of racing in the city of Jjt. Louis was made yesterday when Joseph A. Murphy announced that he had taken an option of purchase on the Kinloch Park race track for five months. The property consists of 135 acres located at the junction of the Kansas City branch of the Wabash railroad and the Florissant branch of the United Railways. The Wabash has tracks graded into the property and people can. be carried from the Union DCpot iu twenty minutes, stopping at Vandeventer Ave, Forsythe Junction, Delmar, Maple Ave., and Ferguson. Tlie United Railways has a double track with ninety-pound steel rails passing the property. There is also a regulation mile track graded ou the property over which sonic of the best thoroughbreds of the country have raced. It was regarded as the safest and best track ever raced over iu St. Louis. Judge Murphy announced that he had associated with him W. D. Cave as business manager, and the two will begin an active campaign on his return to the city after a short trip iu the interests of tha coming New Orleans meeting. The racing movement will have no connection with that to give St. Louis an annual fair and nothing will be done to interfere with this venture. J.udge Murphy outlined his plans yesterday as. follows! "If racing comes back in St. Louis it will be as a sport and not as a business. All of our literature will bear this mark: Kinloch Park. Here is the horse king. I have a bill drawn which I will present to the coming legislature. It provides that in cities of 2C0.00O or more and counties adjacent thereto any five hundred or more citizens may associate themselves together for the purpose of promoting harness and running races and the raising of stock. We propose to organize a society with a cipital stock of 200,000 divided into 20,000 shares of ten dollars each. The purposes of the society are set forth fully in section 7 of the bill as follows: No public contests or exhibitions of any character shall be given by any society incorporated under this act aud the land and other property which may be held by any society .under the provisions of this article shall be held by the society for the exclusive use of its members and for the sole purpose and none other whatsoever of erecting en- closures, buildings, aud other improvements calculated and designed for meetings of the society, for contests of speed and endurance between man and beast, exhibitions of various breeds of horses, cattle, mules and other stock and of agricultural, mechanical and domestic manufactures and productions and for the purchase, importation, breediug and the keeping thereof of such foreign breeds of stock as the board of directors may deem advantageous to the interests of the county and for the breeding, raising, purchasing aud selling of all classes of pure bred stock. "This will do away with the often raised objection to the public soliciting of betting. "Section II. of the bill will provide: No book-making or auction pools will be permitted on the grounds of the society, but when horse racing is carried on for a period not to exceed thirty days iu any one year at least live dajs of which shall be exclusively for harness races, the directors of the society are hereby authorized to arrange members of co-operative iools in such races as are actually contested on the grounds of the society. They are further authorized to deduct from such pools a reasonable per cent for the purpose of providing suitable purses or prices, to issue tickets or receipts for the identification of members and to provide suitable stakeholders for the accommodation of members and .such shall not be considered a violation of any of the provisions of section 474S and 47-19 of the revised statutes. "This will do uway with objection number two, because it abolishes the business of betting. " Objection was made in the last legislature to the appolntmeut of a commission and this feature will be omitted. In order to provide against the springing up of mushroom societies the hill will provide that no one shall be a stockholder of record in more than one society iu any city or county adjacent thereto. Judge Murphys idea is to have two weeks of racing in May before the Canadian season opens and two weeks in October after it is over. The racing will be made a feature of the fall festivities. A harness meeting will be given about Labor Day. It is hoped to have every prominent owner and breeder in the country a stockholder.


Persistent Link: https://drf.uky.edu/catalog/1910s/drf1914103001/drf1914103001_1_4
Local Identifier: drf1914103001_1_4
Library of Congress Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/unk82075800