view raw text
WAITE GATE FOR LEXINGTON Starting" Device to Be Used by Kentucky Association and Churchill Downs. LEXINGTON. Ky., April 3. The Waite starting stalls will be used during the fifteen-day spring meeting, from April 17 to May 3, at the Kentucky Association course here, Sewell S. Combs, president of the association announced today. He said that he had just completed negotiations with G. R. Bryson for the use of the starting stall gate and that one would be placed on the grand stand side of the course and another on the back stretch, thus assuring patrons that virtually every race run during the spring meeting will be started friOm he Waite stalls. The gate was invented by C. M. Waite, who sold his interest to Mr. Bryson a short time ago. The contrivance met with instant fayor at several race courses, including Havre de Grace and Jefferson Park, and, is considered oiie of the safest in operation today.. The stalls separating the horses from one another resemble miniature houses, with an inverted V shaped top, or roof, with a rounded coronet atop of four steel legs, which push into the ground to make the gate firm once it is in place. Each stall just about reaches the saddle cloth of a horse. The usual tape barrier is used in front. Mr. Combs said that the gate would be used throughout the Lexington meeting. This will mark the second time in the history of racing here that a stall gate has been used at the Lexington meeting, the Jarvis gate having been given an unsuccussful trial here a few years ago. LOUISVILLE, Ky., April 3. Col. M. J. Winn, president of the American Turf Association and executive director of Churchill Downs, announced today that the Waite starting gate would be put in use at Churchill Downs this spring. It is expected that permanent stalls will be shortly erected in the mile chute at the Downs, to educate the juveniles and older horses which have been wintering at the local tracks, before the installation of the Waite gate at the time of the opening of the Downs spring meeting.
