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DE MAR AN UNIQUE TRACK Race Course Sponsored by Leaders in the Picture Industry. Probably Only Bona Fide Seaside Track Marvelous Transportation Five Miles Long Beach Other Allurements. DEL MAR, Calif., April 10. Movielands own race track! Thats what Del Mar, the newest racing grounds in California, appears to be. There is scarcely a person connected with it who is not a member of the Hollywood motion picture colony. Its sponsors Include many who are among the leaders in the picture industry. The new track is remarkable in many ways. First, it is probably the only bona fide seaside race course. A golf ball can be driven from the grandstand into the Pacific Ocean. "Bing" Crosby, a golf fan, promises to prove this. Second, the track is blessed with better transportation facilities than any other western course. In addition to a special Santa Fe spur track to the main gate and the adjacent 101 Coast Highway, there is a landing field for planes within a stones throw on one side, while on the other side, only 600 feet distant, is the splendid anchorage for yachts and other water craft. Third, the Del Mar beach, five miles long, lg probably the best in California. It is so close to the grandstand that bathers can spend ten minutes watching a race and then return for twenty minutes in the surf, and so on through the afternoon. The oldest turf fans have yet to see a bevy of bathing beauties, sun-tanned and sand-flecked, with suits still moist, rooting home winners from a clubhouse veranda. MOTION PICTURE HANDICAP. Fourth, the track will present as one of its feature attractions the worlds one and only Motion Picture Handicap. This will be at one mile and exclusively for horses owned by members of the movie colony. A dozen starters are sure to be nominated, including such runners as Brown Jade, Barnsley, En Masse, Lady Florise and Rattlebrain. Fifth, the thoroughbreds will munch their oats in dirt stalls. They are made of adobe, Of the approved early American Mission type, patterned after the best types of the architecture of the Spanish padres. Every one of the 600 stalls face the ocean, assuring tha blueblooded equines of sea breezes de luxe. Sixth, the "salt water" treatment made famous by Harry Unna at Imperial Beach some years ago and which was credited with enabling Golden Prince to win the Coffroth Handicap and restore many other run-down racers to pep and power, will be within a two-minute walk of the box stalls. It will be a common sight for early risers to see dozens of horses splashing up and down the beach fetlock-deep in the waves. ELABORATE TELEPHONE SYSTEM. An innovation at Del Mar will be an elaborate telephone system which will enable patrol judges from their stations around the mile track to instantly report rough riding to the stewards. Also the placing judges for the first time on the Pacific Coast will be stationed on the roof of the grand stand. This high elevation will greatly increase their efficiency. They will be connected by telephone with the stewards stand which will be opposite the finish line and inside the infield, not outside as at most other tracks. The placing judges will be alongside the "eye-in-the-sky" camera and dark room. The grandstand, of early American Mission architecture, will have a capacity of 4,000 persons. There will be sixty boxes and one hundred mutuel windows. The plant, including the lawns and the exclusive social club, will accommodate about 15,000 persons. The construction work is nearing completion and the entire plant will be ready weeks before the scheduled opening of the twenty-two day meeting July 3. PLENTY HORSES AVAILABLE. There will be more horses available than can be accommodated, officials declare. Reservations have been made for upwards of 400 thoroughbreds to date, including the strings of Charles S. Howard, Bing Crosby, William Le Baron, Howard Hawks, Harry Cohn, Joe E. Brown, Constance Bennett, Raoul Walsh, Samuel Briskin, Leon Gordon, Dave Butler, Frank Lloyd, Hunt, Beezley and Boeing, A. G. Tarn, Clyde Phillips Rancho San Luis Rey, and Alexander Pan-tages. The officials of the new club are said to be pleased over the fact that Agua Caliente is to reopen, as with the Mexican track in the field, there came an assurance that horses to comprise the fields would be plentiful. Up to that time it was felt that the twenty-two days of racing at Del Mar might not be sufficient to keep enough stables in Southern California as the short Del Mar season compared to the four months or more of solid racing in the state of Washington and the Ak-Sar-Ben, Riverside and Fairmount Park meetings in the Mississippi Valley could be expected to lure a considerable number of the stables now engaged in the San Francisco section. However, with four days a week of sport starting at Caliente May 8 and six days a week during July, five at Del Mar and Sundays at Caliente, to be followed by a resumption of the four-a-week at the border course August 1, provision is made for a continuous opportunity to win purses which cannot be passed up by the California horsemen.
