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TIJUANA A MONEY MAKER GAVE PROFIT LAST YEAH UNDER ADVERSE CONDITIONS AND DOING BETTER NOW. Bookmaking Probably to Be Adhered to for Another Year — Racing Well Patronized by Winter Tourists — Track Gossip. By J. It. Jeffery. Siin Diego. Cal.. February XL — In tentatively planning for niXt winters rate meeting at Tijuana. General Manager James W« Coffroth of tke Lower California Jockey Club, lias virtually decided that bookmaking shall be retained as the medium for speculation. At various times during the present HUN it has been intimated that the mutuels might eventually supersede the bookmakers in the Tijuana betting ring. P.ut. after careful and thorough consideration of every phase of the matter, lie has practically come to the conclusion that the time has not yet arrived when such a change might be advantageously made. So it may be K garded as settled that the bookmakers will hold forth at this Mexican course for another season :it least — and perhaps longer. It is Mr. Coffroths Mm, based on this seasons experience, that it will be possible to maintain open ring conditions at Tijuana throughout the entire meeting next winter. It is his intention to conduct the racing next •winter upon much the same lines as this season. but a special effort will be made to attract more of the better grade of horses with the idea of imparting a higher tone to the spurt. To that CM, the number of stakes will be increased and more money will be devoted to overnight handicaps and purse races designed to bring the better e lass of horses into daily action. Purse values generally will 1k maintained at tin- same standard that has prevailed this si-ason. Successful as the meeting has been this season. Coffroth believes it is but the forerunner of much more notable meetings in the future. The Tijuana track lias made a notable record in that racing lias talreay been conducted there at a profit from its very inception. The inaugural meeting, held in 1910. showed a profit of some 5,000. it is understood, and the present meeting will likewise result in a substantial balance on the right side of the ledger. Californian Tourists Like Racing. This is in sharp contrast to the record of Ascot Park at Los Angeles, where the promoters of racing were repeatedly called upon to make up deficits in the efforts to establish the sport in spite of the greater population available to draw upon for patronage at that Southern California metropolis. It was not until the beautiful Santa Anita track was built that racing in Southern California was put on a paying basis. Meanwhile, however, the late Thomas H. Williams and his associates were scoring notable successes with racing in the vicinity of San Francisco. The inference to be drawn from all this is that there is a sufficient number of people ir California interested in racing to support one track, on the old basis of a long winter mooting, regardless of its location away from the denser centers of population, and that with the constantly increasing patronage that is certain to be bestowed upon the sport by cast rn racegoers once the charms of this particular section of California and the entertaining character of the racing provided at Tijuana have been borne in upon them. the Lower California Jockey Club has bright prospects indeed. It is certain that next winters meeting will run for at least 1K days. Manager Coffroths contract with Governor Cantu of Lower California provides for a meeting of that duration at bast. It is just possible that next winters mooting will not be opened quite as early as the present one was. but that point lias not yet Ix-en definitely determined. This season the meeting opened November 11 and. after running along in a highly satisfactory way for some weeks, encountered a slump, which was not overcome until the tourists liogati to put in their appearance in largo numbers in January. Manager Coffroth has some idea that a slightly later opening would result in evenly sustained patronage of the sport from beginning to end. If the opening date, should be deferred, it would be to only a slight extent. Marshall Brothers Are Old -Timers. The aiispieioii- entry into the snort at Tijuana of the new racing firm of G. A. Marshall and Co. roc-alls memories of the days when Iouis Marshall, silent partner and trainer of the new stable, was scoring notable successes in the same way at Oakland, some ten or more years ago, with such well-known and popular favorites as Hector. Bantam. Wee Lars and The Reprobate, racing in the eaten of Hall and Marshall. That Mr. Marshall has lost none of his old-time skill witli horses has boon amply demonstrated by the improvement shown by Merry Twinkle and Palatable after they recently passed into his hands. It does not often happen that a new stable makes such a record as this new one already has. As its proprietors are not adverse to backing their horses at remunerative odds, it may well be imagined how the bookmakers in the Tijuana ring felt after the recent repeated successes of Merry Twinkle and Palatable. Associated witli Louis Marshall in the ownership of the stable is his brother. Q surge, who has been a patron of Now York racing in recent years. It is altogether likely that Palatable and hi* stablemates will be shipped east at the conclusion of the Tijuana meeting for a summer campaign on the New York tracks. The success of the Marshall horses has brought jockey Kelsay, who is doing the riding for the stable, into favorable notice and this lads services arc now in great demand. It is evident that he is a rider of no mean ability and one whose capability s wore overlooked in the earlier part of the meeting. Gossip of Tijuana Horsemen, ♦ lcfr C. Byrne, who brought Estimable to the ecMSt, has disposed of that mare and returned to the east. His brother, jockey G. Bryae, cent with him. Neither had a successful experience hero. Jockey Byrnes rough riding tactics k pt him on the- ground during most of the time he was here. Charlie Ledgett. who for a long period of years held the program privilege at the Oakland race track, is acting as betting commissioner for E. G. Koala at Tijuana and probably will at coin puny that noted operator cast at the conclusion of the Tijuana season. iA-dgett-. home is at Oakland. Jockey Harrington is cluing the riding nowadays for William Walkers stable, and doing it well. The Walker color* hare bc-cu muck more conspicuous since the cedoreel lad. A. Casey, who suffered a slump after riding well in the early part of the meeting, has been given a vacation by his employer. A. .1. Jackson, who race-d Pickaway, Fern L.. Storma and other horses suee-nssfully on the Pacific-coast a decade e r so ago, was a recent arrival from New Orleans, where he enjoyed several weeks of racing. He is not now interested in a stable, and is devoting his energies to the development of a piece of real estate that he owns in the suburbs of Milwaukee. He plans to remain here to the end of the season. F. S. Fogg has departed for Hot Springs, with Old Kyltrs and Dimitri, bath of which horse-s came to the coast with a considerable reputation. The former, for which his owner is said to have paid 8B, IKKI in Kentucky last fall, won a maiden race here recently at the first time of asking in impressive fashion, and is evidently a good sort of a horse.
