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Here and There on the Turf Talk About Racing Dates Some Minor Conflicts This Year YearCourse Course of Racing in New York With every snow storm there follows a counting of the days until the thoroughbreds will be back Winter is always long and a tritl for the stayathomes and a chart ac ¬ quaintance with the horses at New Orleans Havana and Tijuana cannot be compared with Eeeing them in actual conflict However it will not be EO long now bsfore the faithful will be back in the sunshine seeing the thor ¬ oughbreds in action actionThe The Maryland dates have not yet been an ¬ nounced by the Racing Commission of that state but it is usual for racing to begin there April 1 That cannot happen this year for the reason that April 1 is Sunday but in any event Bowie will open its gates first of the Maryland tracks and the sport will probably continue there until May 12 closing with the running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Kentucky is already supplied with its rac ¬ ing dates and the first glimpse of the horses in action will come at Lexington Saturday April 28 The campaign in that state owing to the taking in of Ashland and Dade Park will furnish racing until August 25 This will make a new conflict with both Saratoga and the Canadian racing in July and August if there is racing in Canada Just how it will affect Canadian racing remains to be seen It is not expected that the Dade Park meeting will offer any serious conflict with Saratoga In April a new track is to make a bid for patronage at Columbus Ohio where the Capi ¬ tal City Racing Association is to conduct an eleven days meeting from April 21 to May 3 preceding the meeting at Maple Heights HeightsStill Still another meeting that may be of im ¬ portance is that at Huntington W Va It is planned to have a race meeting there from May 1C to May 31 Those dates will be in conflict with other racing But both the Ohio meeting and that planned for West Virginia can offer no real opposition to the larger tracks They have their place on the smaller circuit and afford another outlet for horses that have small business in either New York or Kentucky KentuckyOf Of course what is of greatest interest at this tune to New Yorkers is the matter of the racing dates for New York It is known that several tentative schedules have been sub ¬ mitted and probably in a few days there will be an announcement made by the stewards of the Jockey Club Taking a line through other 3ears it would not be surprising if there was an earlier start to the New York campaign Time was when racing began in New York on April 15 and continued until November 15 15New New York has gone through much since that long away time and the tale of how racing was brought back to its present prosperity is told in the dates There was no racing on any of the big tracks under the jurisdiction of the Jockey Club in New York during 1911 and 1912 Then in 1913 when racing re ¬ turned it was on May 30 at Belmont Park where a meeting was conducted for eighteen days but they were not consecutive days daysIn In 1914 the racing season started at Bel ¬ mont Park beginning Tuesday May 26 and twentyone days of racing was stretched over a considerable period of time timeIn In 1915 the opening was again at Belmont Park It was on Thursday May 20 and was an eighteen days meeting Then in 1916 1917 1918 1919 and 1920 Jamaica opened the racing year with a short meeting and the time was divided with Belmont Park In these years the opening dates were 1916 May 18 1917 May 18 1918 May 16 1919 May 15 and 1920 May 15 15It It was in 1921 that Jamaica went right through with a meeting of eighteen days be ¬ ginning May 6 Last year Jamaica began the New York campaign Wednesday May 3 with a nineteen days meeting A study of these dates will show that the return has been gradual but that the dates never went back from the struggling start in 1913 when racing meant a big loss to the associations In those lean days valuable help came from the Piping Rock Racing Associa ¬ tion that conducted racing at its picturesque Locust Valley course Then for a time there was racing at Benning and in Maryland which helped materially to keep the thoroughbreds employed During the term of the war the Piping Rock Association suspended its racing and it has never been revived on that most delightful of Long Island rasing grounds groundsBenning Benning was closed but in the meantime New York had gradually come back The in ¬ terest in the sport had always been kept alive and year after year the racing term has been lengthened stake races and purses have been increased in value and the perseverence and courage of the men who tided the sport over the dark days is being repaid bountifully bountifullyThe The American turf has grown to such pro ¬ portions that conflict of racing times does not work anything like the hardship of a few years back There are horses enough and patrons enough for the various racing sections and although Maryland and New York are neigh ¬ bors even those two states do not hurt one another to any extent when racing is conducted simultaneously Maryland has prospered won ¬ derfully with its racing and has taken a front position in the matter of liberal money for the horses This prosperity has made inevitable a conflict with the New York dates but New York has her share of prosperity and when there is racing in both sections at the same time boih spring and fall there is ample room for both For 1923 there will undoubt adly be more conflicts than recently but at the same time the most pessimistic sportsman can see nothing but prosperity for both states Also in the West for Kentucky and not kn possibly for Illinois
