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CO-OPERATE IN NEW ENGLAND Rockingham Park, Narragansett and New Boston Track Form Circuit. Working Together to Offer Horsemen Long Season of Sport and Attractive List of Prizes. PAWTUCKET, R. I., May 22 Hardly sufficient emphasis has been given the recent announcement that the respective managements of Narragansett, Suffolk Downs and Rockingham have reached a working agreement in the matter of alternating dates. On such a decision unquestionably rested the entire future of New England racing. Without this agreement, the individual tracks of New England would have experienced great difficulty in withstanding the competition and opposition offered just now by other racing centers. After all, race tracks cannot operate without race horses, and race horse owners, for economic reasons, must run their charges at spots offering the maximum awards with the minimum of overhead expenses. And a highly important item in a stables overhead is the cost of transportation from track to track. In New York state, five race tracks, within easy shipping distance of each other, offer continuous racing from mid-April until the end of October. Saratoga, Belmont, Jamaica, Aqueduct and Empire are independently owned and operated, but for the sake of the game itself, the New York Jockey Club and the New York State Racing Commission take a hand in the arrangement of dates and insist there shall be no clashing. New York tracks really operate as a unit, and so close is the co-operation between them that one racing secretary, Jack B. Campbell, handles the complete racing arrangements. The great advantage here is obvious. In the state of Illinois, six race tracks operate continuously from May 1 until the end of October without an overlap of a single day. Washington Park, Aurora, Sportsmans Park, Lincoln Fields, Hawthorne and Arlington Park, all within easy distance of each other and working on the friendliest of terms, offer horsemen a wide range of events. Horsemen can take their strings to Chicago, be sure of finding many races in the book to suit their requirements, and with costly transportation charges eliminated, they can get through the season and show a profit. Illinois furnishes tough opposition. There are six tracks in Ohio Coney Island, Beulah Park, Dayton, Bainbridge, Thistle Down and Hamilton, where horses of moderate caliber attract only a modest play, but the absence of cutthroat competiton permits the tracks to get by year after year. The situation in Kentucky is the same as in other states. Churchill Downs and La-tonia are jointly owned by the American Turf Association and, naturally, work together, but even here president Matt Winn is always ready to share his dates and horses with the other Blue Grass State track, Dade Park. Actually, the circuits of New York and Illinois are the direct competitors to New England. But with the new lineup, New England can offer 150 days of continuous racing for purses and stakes that equal anything in the country. Rhode Islands Narragansett Special, set for August 21, will be one of the richest prizes, of the year, and when judge Frank Bryan completes his book, Boston will be found to offer just as attractive prizes. Too much praise cannot be given Waiter OHara, Charles F. Adams and Lou. Smith for their common sense in combining to present a united front for New England in a bid to attract the finest thoroughbreds and the best turfmen for this section. Racing here will be conducted on sane, conservative lines, and there is no reason at all why it cannot go on indefinitely.
