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CLEVELANDS NEW TRACK Thistle Down Park to Be Name of Proposed Mile Course. J. McMillen, Well-Known Turfman Is Back of the Venture Pretentious Plans Outlined. CLEVELAND, Ohio, Nov. 27. Cleveland is to have a new race course, second to none in America, in 1925, according to the present plans of J. McMillen, wealthy local turfman and owner of a pretentious stable of thoroughbreds. The new course will be a mile in circumference, with a seven-eighths chute, and the new corporation, which was organized and headed by" Mr. McMillen, announced that the. inaugural meeting of the Thistle Down Jockey Club would be conducted from August 1 to August "22, 1925, inclusive. The new plant is being laid out on the old Thistle Down Farm, adjacent to the Forest City Fair and Live Stock Associations track at North Randall, whence the track takes its name, "Thistle Down Park." Elaborate plans are being perfected to make the racing program one of the most attractive in the Middle West, and will in all probability be featured by the Flint Stone Memorial Handicap, 0,000 added, for three-year-olds and over, at a mile and an eighth. This event has been tentatively "agreed upon by Mr. McMillen and his associates and other features will be decided later. The inaugural meeting will be conducted under the rules of the New York Jockey Club. Mr. McMillen will ask Henry J. Morris, steward of the Jockey Club and National Hunt Association, to preside at the meeting. Marshall Cassidy, who started at most of the Ohio .meetings this year and at present is engaged at Tijuana, has already been engaged to do the starting, and Mr. McMillen says he will endeavor to secure the best racing officials available. S. N. Holman, president of the Ohio State Jockey Club, has been spoken of as the general jnanager of the new tiack and, while no definite arrangements have been made, Mr. McMillen intimated he wants Mr. Holman to handle the plant. A modern steel grandstand with a seating capacity of 5,000, and a handsome clubhouse, patterned after Havre de Grace, Maryland, will be built. The architects are now on a tour of the different tracks to perfect their specifications for the stand and mutuel plant. In outlining the plans of the club, Mr. McMillen said : "This plant is as much a public project as a private undertaking. Churches, schools or any group of citizens who desire to hold meetings there on days when racing is not in progress, will be welcome to its use. I intend to make it one of the beauty spots of great Cleveland, with an abundance of flowers, shrubbery and other attractive embellishments. "We will have to hustle in order to have the track ready by August 1, and I aim to have it complete in every detail. The meeting that" we propose to start on that date probably will be the only one attempted the first year. Grading outfits are busy- now and will be busy every day work is possible. "There will be accommodations for S00 horses, with thirty stalls in each barn. The first barn is practically finished and will be for my private use."
