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JOE CATTARINICH DIES Heart Attack Fatal to Prominent Canadian Sportsman-Breeder. Succumbs After Operation for Removal of Cataracts From Eyes Interested in Many Tracks. NEW ORLEANS, La., Dec. 7. Joseph Cattarinich, prominent Canadian breeder and sports promoter, died at 10 oclock this morning in the Baptist Hospital here following an operation for the removal of a cataract on one of his eyes. Cattarinich, who was 57 years old and who had been in failing health for the past three years, succumbed to a heart attack shortly after he had been removed from the operating chamber to his hospital room. Cattarinich entered the hospital last night, and the operation this morning was believed to have been a success. He seemed almost to be in a jovial mood as the effects of a local anaesthetic wore off when he was Stricken. Mrs. Cattarinich and their daughter, Mrs. Jeanne Seremba, were at the bedside when death came. The Canadian sportsman, head of the mu-tuel department at the Fair Grounds and a stockholder in a number of other tracks in the United States and Canada, had been active at the local racing plant right up to the time he entered the hospital. He returned to New Orleans this year after having been more or less inactive all of the 1937-38 season of the Louisiana Jockey Club. HIS MANY INTERESTS. Other tracks besides the Fair Grounds in which Cattarinich had an interest at the time of his death included the Fox Valley Jockey Club at Aurora, 111.; Dorval Park, Blue Bonnets and Connaught Parks in Canada; and also was a stockholder in Bain-bridge Park, near Cleveland, which has been operated as a dog racing track the past several years. Cattarinich at various times during his association with the turf was interested, either as a director of mutuels or as track operator, in Arlington Park, Washington Park, Fairmount Park, Thistle Down, Syracuse, Kempton Park, Dayton Ohio Fair Grounds, Hamilton, Delorimer Park and Maissoneuve. Delorimer was the first track with which Cattarinich was connected, and he introduced the pari-mutuel system of betting there in 1920. The Canadian, whose affiliation with the thoroughbred sport also included the breeding and racing of horses, directed the mu-tuel department at Arlington Park when H. D. "Curley" Brown opened the track, and he served in a similar capacity at Washington Park. NEW ORLEANS CONNECTIONS. For many years an oralizer on tracks in New Orleans, under the name of J. Catta, a contraction of his real name which was too long to be printed on the badges which identified the commissioners, Cattarinich first acquired an interest in a track here in 1926 when mutuel betting was introduced at Jefferson Park, which had been purchased from G. D. Bryan and James F. OHara two years earlier by Robert S. Eddy, Jr., and associates. The Shrewsbury course was operated until 1932 when the present Fair Grounds was purchased from Col. E. R. Bradley, and Cattarinich came over with the organization on whose board of directors he served until his death. Jefferson Park then was aban- f Continued on twenty-second page. JOE CATTARINICH DIES Continued from first page. doned, and since has only been used for training purposes and housing horses not able to be provided for at the Fair Grounds. The Canadian sportsmans ambition always had been to breed and own a Kentucky Derby winner, and at the time of his death he had a "likely candidate for that Churchill Downs fixture in Brodea.a juvenile son of Brother Joe Dearinez, which he bred on his Vercheres Farm at Montreal. Catta-rinich bought Vercheres from the late Com. J. K. L. Ross, and, with Cudgel and War Instigator standing at the head of his stud, he bred horses on a rather extensive scale, but in recent years he disposed of much of his thoroughbred holdings and raced only a few horses. Brodea already has distinguished himself as a juvenile of quality, having won the Provincial Nursery Handicap and the Kindergarten Stakes at Blue Bonnets. Other horses he had here at the Fair Grounds include a pair of yearlings which he named Light Jos and Brunot, the former a full brother to Brodea. BORN IN FRANCE. Cattarinich was born in France and brought to Montreal as a. child by his parents. In his younger days he was a lacrosse player, a pursuit from which he bore many scars, and was a member of the Montreal Nationals. He later was identified with a number of sports enterprises and until a few years ago was part owner of the Les Canadiens, onetime Stanley Hockey Cup winner. Cattarinich also has been mentioned several times in the- last five years as a possible purchaser of the St. Louis Browns baseball club. Church services for Cattarinich will be conducted at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Church at 10 oclock Thursday morning, and the body will leave New Orleans at 1 oclock that afternoon for Montreal for burial. Besides members of his family, several of his closest friends will, accompany the remains northward.
