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LAST PROP OF THE REFORMERS GONE Kentucky Hoeing; Under Kentucky Ownership and Kentucky Government Now Safe and Dry. CINCINNATI. O.. February 4. The sale of La-tonia and Douglas Park to the Lexington syndicate is an assured fact. Of course, the actual sale has lias not been completed and the property has not been turned over, but 0,000 has been paid on the purchase price, and this, of course, shdws that Senator Johnson N. Camden and his associates mean business. Thirty-five days have been provided in which to actually complete the sale, but it is believed that all the affairs can Ik? wound up long before that time if the syndicate sees fit to go ahead. The sale is the biggest turf deal of any kind ever pulled off in Kentucky, and it is doubtful. Jf .there ever has been a bigger one in America. 0f course, more- money has been spent in building Belmont Park and some other tracks, but this deal has greater significance than the mere spending of money. It means perpetuating the thoroughbred in his native state. With one fell swooy, as it were, all props have been knocked from under the reformer who would do away witli the noble sport, and he Is, left without a leg to stand upon. He had just one leg before, and that was alien ownership. But that is now gone, and the turf In Kentucky is safe and dry. Some few pessimists have been around predicting that the advent of the owner and the breeder into the rank of race track owners would do no good for the sport; that the general public would become distrustful of the sport. Such a thing could happen, but it will not. happen with such men as Senator Camden, Alvin T. Hert. James Brown, P. J. Hanlon. K. L. Baker and K. It. Bradley in control of th" track. Good, capable officers, with plenty- of nerve to enforce the rules as laid down by the racing commission, will keep the sport clean and above-board. POLITICAL OPPOSITION REMOVED. The transfer of the race tracks to the breeding syndicate means that most of the political opposition to horse racing has been removed. Thero always will be reformers who desire to see their names in print, and who will go fortii on crusades to purify the moral atmosphere of the commonwealth, but with such a widely distributed representation of prominent persons in the jockey clubs their efforts will count for little. The horsemen are going to lie well provided for by the new owners, but the horsemen must not forget that it is the dear old public which pays the bills, and a seasonable amount of the earnings, at Latonia especially, need to be devoted to improvements. It is quite likely that when a manager lias been named that, he will see the need for many improvements at the old course. Since the sale of the race tracks virtuallv has been assured there can be no harm in saying that one of the main reasons for the deal was the fact that the Douglas Park Jockey Club has a suit pending in the Supreme Court at Washington which would have come up for hearing some time this summer. It will be remembered that some two years ago the Douglas Park Jockey Club attacked the racing commission ca the grounds that the commission was not vested with authority to make the tracks offer a definite sum to their purse events. The jockey club was defeated in all the Kentucky Courts and appealed the case to the Supreme Court. The latter court refused to permit the case to be advanced on the calendar, which gave many persons the impression that it had been disposed of. Such was not tin? case, so when Senator Camdeu and his associates by taking over the race tracks also disposed of this suit they performed a double service. If the powers of the racing commission had thus been curtailed, its efforts to regulate and purify the sport would have been negligible. By buying Douglas Park there exists no reason to press tlte suit, so it will be dropped and all will be serene in the sport of racing.
