view raw text
BEGIN IMPROVEMENT WORK Fair Grounds to Have Stadium on , First Turn. Departure of Stuliles Enables Superintendent to Start Resurfacing Track Recent Electing Successful. NEW ORLEANS, La., April 14. With the departure from New Orleans of the last racing stable, the Louisiana Jockey Clubs plans of rebuilding the Fair Grounds track and erecting a new stadium have been put under way.- Ideal weather here this spring prompted many horsemen to remain here as long as they could before shipping to the Kentucky and Chicago meetings and superintendent Frank Kelly not only patiently waited for them to go before he could start work on the track, but kept- the course in perfect shape for the trainers to work their charges. Last year work of resurfacing the track was delayed until late in the fall. And but for the fact that the Fair Grounds enjoyed splendid weather for its winter season, the track no doubt would have given trouble. As it was the course was. better than it has ever been and for next year Kelly promises the perfect race track. Thousands of cubic yards of selected sandy loam will be spread and graded within the next month and this will be put in the hands of nature to set until next fall. , A stadium which will have standing room for 5,000 will be constructed at the first turn and it is believed the Fair Grounds next year will see the largest crowds in history. Announcement that the same stake program of the past season would be offered for the .forty-one-day meeting, which starts January j 1, ,1931, and runs until Mardi Gras Day, late .in February, followed the statement of the success of the 1930 meeting of fifty-four days. Notwithstanding the general business depression and fact that many race tracks through-out the country lost money, the Louisiana Jockey Club realized a profit of ?67,000 on its meeting. . E. R. Bradley, the moving spirit in the Louisiana Jockey Club, no sooner learned . that the meeting had "broken even," which is all he seems to expect of it, than he ordered sweeping improvements in the way of a new stadium, new barns and rebuilding of the .track early this spring. The list of thirteen stakes spread over the recent fifty-four-day meeting will be run off during the forty-one-day meeting of next winter. The stakes range in value from ,500 to 0,000, starting with the ,000 New Tears Handicap. The New Orleans Handicap, 0,000 added, is run about midway of the meeting, the ,000 Louisiana Jockey Club Stakes, for three-yeariolds, features the final week, and the 5,000 Mardi Gras Handicap !tops the closing days card, "Just tell the turf world and the tourists that the 1931 Louisiana Jockey Club meeting is going to be the best winter meeting ever held and that they will see a more beautiful Fair Grounds than they ever dreamed of next year," is the word Colonel Bradley passed out before leaving the South for Idle Hour Farm, at Lexington, Ky.
