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BETTER WEEKS IN OFFING Cheerful Prospects for Louisiana Tracks Under New Plan. Jefferson Racing Certain to Improve and FalrrGroundsSeesHGhance for Profits. During Mardl Gras Season. NEW ORLEANS, La., Jan. 5 Last Saturdays racing at Jefferson Park marked the completion of one-third of, the local 1931-32 season of ninety-nine days, and today the Jefferson Park meeting of fifty-one days plunged into the final three weeks. All factors considered, the season to date favorably compares with a fair anticipation of what might have been expected. Under conditions encountered, the season, irrespective of profit or loss, has advanced into the concluding sixty-six days, or eleven weeks, with lofty prospects for much excellent sport and an interest momentum most encouraging to the management of Jefferson Park as well as to the owners of the Fair Grounds, to which the scene shifts January 25, when a forty-eight-day meeting will be inaugurated. New Orleans has long been recognized as one of the countrys outstanding racing communities. Down through the seasons, Crescent City tracks have been thronged, and on the face of returns this winter interest is just as wide and keen as at any time in all the years racing has been zooming along in this delta city. As in the East, West, North and all around the globe, the South knows the sting of the scarcity of cash, and the decline in receipts from certificate sales leaves little, if any, chance for operators of the two tracks to pull through their respective meetings with the balance on the right side of the ledger. Up to this time the Jefferson Park season has been a losing one, but with a better than average break in weather the next three weeks the loss may be greatly reduced, if not overcome. The Fair Grounds will have the advantage of the Mardi Gras and winter visitors, and if the number of carnival visitors and transients holds close to last winters figures, the Louisiana Jockey Club, which operates the plant, may fare better than last year, when a loss was sustained. This winter the Fair Grounds opens and runs later than ever before, and, while the changed racing time, a3 worked out in cooperation with the Jefferson Park people, who exchanged March or spring dates for eighteen days in this month, is an experiment, it may work out advantageously for the Fair Grounds if the tourist season can be prolonged by the attractiveness of racing Continued on second vage. BETTER WEEKS IN OFFING Continued from first page. at the convenient and picturesque Fair Grounds. During the next three weeks, almost regardless of track conditions, Jefferson Park will offer the best racing of the winter to date, and the first running of the ,000 added Jefferson Derby Saturday, January 23, is expected to prove one of the biggest drawing cards of the season. This race, a new feature, will bring out all the best three-year-olds in all of the scores of stables, and the running will afford a line on the candidates for the 0,000 added Louisiana Derby and other of the stakes for three-year-olds on the Fair Grounds program. The Jefferson Derby will be decided over a mile, while the Louisiana Derby will test starters at a mile and one-eighth. Stables with one or more hopefuls for the new Jefferson race include those of Col. E. R. Bradley, R. A. Fairbairn, Mrs. Payne Whitney, C. V. Whitney, A. B. Letellier, J. Leiter, J. J. Robinson, J. O. Keene, R. J. and P. A. Nash, S. W. Labrot, F. Seremba, W. T. Waggoner and Sons, H. P. Headley, and others. Candidates include Lucky Tom, Flying Don, Renaissance, Princess Camelia, Battling Knight, Bertjohn, Bad News, Busted, Texas Knight, Sir Melton, Prince Hotspur, Prince Farthing, Sazerac, Jack B., Habanero, Too-dleoo, and others. On Saturday, January 19, the stars of the handicap division will be assembled to race a mile and one-sixteenth in the ,000 added Louisiana Handicap, another new event on the Jefferson program. This may be the next important objective of that ever-winning, improved Wotan, the Bunting gelding successful in the New Years Handicap, Thanksgiving and Green Wave Handicaps for Edward Haughton here this winter. If he can get away with the honors here there may be no stopping the Haughton gelding during the season as the field for the Louisiana, if decided over a good or fast track, will provide the popular "Whooty" with more of a job than any previous engagement pre-sented.
