view raw text
LEASE ON MICHIGAN TRACK Detroit Racing Association Secures State Fair Grounds in Detroit. Joseph A. Murphy to Be Director of Racing Bidwill, Cattarinich and Others Among Unsuccessful Bidders. LANSING, Mich., July 31. Samuel T. Metzger, commissioner of agriculture, and representatives of. the Detroit Racing Association, Inc., are expected to meet here this week to formally close an agreement whereby the state will lease the State Fair Grounds race track at Detroit to that association, headed by Charles B. Bohn, president of the Bonn Aluminum Company. The lease will provide for 100 days of racing annually and will give the state 80,000 in rental and license fees in addition to the state tax on admission charges. The lease must be approved by the administrative board, of which Governor William A. Com-stock is chairman. Announcement that the highest bid for the State Fair Grounds and a license to hold running races with betting had been received from the Detrorit Racing Association, was made known Saturday by Governor Comstock and followed spirited bidding in which several groups participated. On Friday it was announced that Charles W. Bid-will, president of the Chicago Stadium Company, was the high bidder but this was in error, the governor explaining that "the report that Bidwills bid was high resulted from an error in computing the Detroit Racing Associations bid on an eighty-day basis, whereas the Bidwill bid, also of 80,000, was for 100 days." Associated with Bohn will be Peter A. Markey. also an executive of the Bohn Aluminum Company; Walker Wright of the J. L. Hudson Company: Louis Lepper, all of Detroit, and other prominent residents of that city, according to Markey, who has acted as spokesman for the group. "We expect the lease to be signed within a few days," Markey said in an interview at Detroit. "We intend to expend upwards of 50,000 in repairing the track and grandstand and in providing quarters for the horses. If will be necessary to build a number of new barns and we plan quarters for 1,000. horses. "Our racing will be under the direction of judge Joseph A. Murphy, one of the best, most favorably known and capable racing officials in the business. Judge Murphy is in charge of the racing at the Hawthorne, New Orleans Fair Grounds and other tracks and will be in absolute charge of our racing. "With the work of repairing and improving the plant getting under way this week, we hope to start our meeting within four weeks, possibly on September 2, and intend to give purses that will bring a fine class of thoroughbreds to Detroit. A number of stakes and handicaps will be offered. "Many prominent sportsmen desire to become associated with us, and a number of Continued on twenty-fourth page. LEASE ON MICHIGAN TRACK Continued from first page. them will become members of our association before our meeting opens." Included among the unsuccessful bidders in addition to Bidwill, were Joseph Cattar-inich and Leo Dandurand, Montreal promoters and owners of the Les Canadiens hockey team and a number of race tracks, and the Michigan Jockey Club, a group of Detroiters including James Jones, vice-president and general maanger of Crowley-Mil-ner; Manfred Burleigh, vice-president of Greyhound Bus Lines; Maynard D. Smith, head of the Fort Shelby Hotel Company, and W. G. Fitzpatrick, attorney. Bidwill is said to have represented Chicago and Kentucky interests. If the lease is approved only the appointment of a racing commissioner remains to complete the states arrangements for supervising the sport. The governor has indicated that he will name a commissfoner within a few days.
