New Track For Florida: Joseph M. Smoot Announces Pretentious Plans for Race Course at Miami Beach., Daily Racing Form, 1931-06-23

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NEW TRACK FOR FLORIDA Joseph M. Smoot Announces Pretentious Plans for Race Course at Miami Beach. MIAMI, Fla., June 22.— The Miami Beach Jockey Club, with a ,000,000 building program to extend over the next eighteen months, giving Metropolitan Miami its second racing plant, is announced in a full page advertisement in a local paper by Joseph M. Smoot, former president of the original Miami Jockey Club at Hialeah, and president of the newly-announced institution. The site, Mr. Smoot stated, has already been obtained and will be announced simultaneously with the completion of plans and specifications of the track, stands and club buildings, after which work on the project will commence immediately. Details of the financing of the venture are not known, but in the advertisement it is stated, "None of the stock of the Miami Beach Jockey Club will be offered for sale in the state of Florida." "Completion of the plant," said Mr. Smoot, "is scheduled for the 1932-33 season. It will be impossible to finish the extensive building operations before that time, and we are not going to start racing until we have given Miami the finest racing plant in the country. "One detail of the plans we have perfected is a definite matter of policy which I have decided to announce at this time, and to which I pledge the Miami Beach Jockey Club, Inc. One half of 1 per cent of the total amount of money represented in the pari-mutuel play will be deducted from the Miami Beach Jockey Clubs mutuel commissions at every racing meeting and presented weekly for the benefit of the unemployed, destitute families and charitable organizations, the fund to be administered by a committee of responsible Dade County citizens. Based upon my past experience in the operation of a racing plant in Dade County, this amount should be approximately 00,000 annually. "The Miami Beach Jockey Club will not be in competition with the present Hialeah plant, although my interests in that institution were sold with the specific and distinct understanding that no provisions of the sale restricted, in any way, my subsequent racing activities, here or elsewhere. Rather, we will offer every form of co-operation which will tend to improve and uphold the highest form of sport for Miami. "All materials used in the ,000,000 building program will be purchased through local houses and local labor will be used exclusively. We will co-operate with local labor and a standard scale of wages will be strictly maintained." Twyman and McCarthy, who have represented Mr. Smoot as attorneys in the development of the project, will represent the club in its Florida operations. Mr. Smoot has been here for several days attending to details preparatory to starting construction of the new plant. He expects to return to New York shortly and from there will make further announcements concerning the club, its officers and the directorate. *


Persistent Link: https://drf.uky.edu/catalog/1930s/drf1931062301/drf1931062301_16_3
Local Identifier: drf1931062301_16_3
Library of Congress Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/unk82075800