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TIJUANA OPENS THURSDAY - All in Readiness for Prosperous Winter Meeting in Far West. About 500 Horses on the Grounds Attracted by Rich Stakes and Overnight Purses. . - SAN DIEGO, Cal., November 20. The "winter race meeting of the Lower California Jockey Club that will begin at Tijuana course, which is just over the Mexican forder in lower California and only some fifteen minutes by trolley from the business heart of this city, on Thanksgiving will continue 125 days or more. It will be marked by the distribution among the horsemen of between 00,000 ami 00,000 the gross sum will depend on the length of time the meeting is prolonged-arid the running of more than a score of splendid stakes. General manager J, W. Coffroth and his associates have improved and. beautified the Tijuana course so that it now compares favorably with the most pretentious in this country. In addition no effort lias been spared to bring to Tijuana the best horses obtainable and, with that end in view, a grand array of valuable stakes were offered. The stakes number seventeen, with, the Coffroth Handicap of 0,000 the salient feature and the TI. S. Grant Hotel Handicap and Baja California Handicap of 0,000 each, the next in importance There are three ,000 features and the remainder range in value from ,500 to ,500. No purse will be less than 00. Already there are about 500 horses on the grounds, with others arriving daily from Kentucky and the far East. The track is iu splendid condition and trainers are sending their charges along in a way to suggest that the fields for the opening days will not vvant for lack of horses ready to race. Winter tourists in these parts are increasing in numbers each succeeding year and from the large list of reservations at the hotels here there will be more here during the coming winter than ever before. San Diego, now a town of close to a quarter of a million, counting the thousands who constitute the population of its beautiful suburbs, is one of the most attractive wintering places on the continent. The temperature never varies fifteen degrees in this singularly equable climate. It is always June iu southern California and northern Lower California There is never a day in the year when sea bathing and deep sea fishing are not possible, and these are two of the allurements cif San Diego in winter. And no city on either the Atlantic or the Pacific seaboard that makes play for winter tourist patronage has anything on San Diego in the matter of hotels. Francis Nelson, the well and favorably known Canadian racing official, who will be the presiding steward at Tjuana, in full charge of the racing, is now on his way here from his .home in Toronto. The acquisition of Judge Nelson- to the official staff at Tijuana is favorably commented on everywhere and his presence in the stewards stand is a guarantee of clean racing and an assurance that the rules of racing will be strictly adhered to. Among the recent arrivals here is the string of W. C. "Weant from Canada with twenty-two horses, including the veteran Top o th Morning, Diomed, Mary Iteigel, Bon Otis, Ahzac, Sir Oliver and others. All shipped well and will be ready fbr an early start. , A top dressing several inches in depth has been put on the Tijuana track. This top dressing was selected by expert track engineers and it has already been demonstrated that it dries -out. almost immediately. James W. Coffroth is confident that from this season on the going of the Tijuana course will not lump, as .it did in years gone by and he believes that If he can get a fast enough horse out here in the course of the winter meeting he will bring to Tijuana the mile reeord for the American continent.
