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EFFECTIVE CURB ON TRACK BUILDING. Horsemen Pledge Themselves Not to Race on Any New Courses in Ontario. The remedy for the injurious multiplie-ation of race courses in any community has always been in the hands that Ware slow, or even unwilling, to use it — those of the horse owners themselves. Without horses to run over them, all the efforts of promoters in building undesired and unnecessary tracks would come to nothing. You cant have racing without race horses, but the owners were without union or leadership, and their slackness in protecting their property and their livedihooel made the way easy for sharpers always ready to prey on helplessness. None of the ill-starred enterprises whose careers are the milestones in the path of trouble trav -led by the turf in America, the last epiarter of a century, could have been brought into existence had there been a united body of horsemen, guided by a policy whose first principle was eelf-pratsc tion. and based on a realization of the absolute necessity of the subserviency of individual interest to the general welfare of the- turf. The establish ment of the Thoroughbred Horse Association, now an international body, is evidence that thoughtful and far-seeing turfmen bare come to the understanding of the value of concerted action and the wisdom of practical steps to put an end to the things that threaten the sport and their own future, writes the turf expert of the Toronto Globe. The Most Effective Method. It has been said that the troubles of the turf are all traceable to two things— the greed of promoters and the stupidity of owners. If there was justice in the latter reproach, there is now an earnest effort to remove it. and the concrete proof lies in the announced determination of the association to maintain to the utmost the policy agreed on at the meeting in Toronto last autumn, when it was de-ciel- d to refrain from racing at any track in Ontario not then built and licensed. The first numlier of the Association ltullctin declares that this will be strictly adhered to. If the Thoroughbred Hoi- -Association follows that out. the qneatioa of new race courses in this province will be as effectually settled by the horsemen themsedves as it could be by any legislation. The Itulletiu reviews the circumstances under which the course of the association was decided on. anil continues: The Official Statement. "The incident was regarded as closed by the horse-men and track owners until there appeared in the province a couple of promoters with the announcement that they would build another near Toronto. "Another investigation of conditions was made during December and January by the directors of the Thoroughbred Horse Association, and at their meeting on January 24. they resolved that the pledge of the aaeaabera of this association given in the ape rial meeting at Toronto. September 2H. shall be regarded as binding net alone- upon the members who made it. but upon ail members of the association. That pledge is: A Pledge to Be Kept. " We wiO not race over any track not already built in the province of Ontario and licensed by the Ontario government. "Memories of Guttcnburg. St. Asaph. Iron Hill. Roby. Sportsmens Park. Kosedale. Kinloch. Union Park. Tanforan. Qarftdd Park, Worth and many other decayed and decaying racing plants, live with members of the Thoroughbred Horse Assoeia-tion as warnings aat to permit greedy promoters, who have no interest in racing as a sport and no sentiment about or for the thoroughbred horse, who are solely out for the money they can get from "the game. to kill the- tun of thousands of good citizens by calling down the wrath of the populace upon racing as something overdone. "The Canadian Kaeing Associations inemb is have beea informed that the member; of the Thoroughbred Horse Association will keep their pledges. And they will."
