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NEWEST TRACK IN FLORIDA Opening Date for Hollywood Course to Be Set Back to January 18. Construction Work Still Unfinished List of Officials Announced Minimum Purse 00. MIAMI, Fla., Dec. 13. Construction work on the new Hollywood Jockey Club course, just fifteen miles north of Miami, has progressed until now there seems to be no reason to fear the new organization will not be ready for an initial meeting this winter. To afford ample time to complete the course, it has been decided to defer the opening from January 11 to January 18. The additional week should give ample time at the rate the work has progressed. The racing strip itself was completed months ago and the work of putting up the stand and the various buildings is being rushed along. There was some little delay awaiting the steel for the grandstand, but all is in readiness for it and a part of the shipment has already been received. The stables, which are of particularly sturdy construction, are being rushed along and it is intended to have ten ready for the horses within a few weeks. Already several reservations have been made and with the placing of some top soil on the course the galloping will begin before many days. The stand will have a seating capacity of 6,500 and in addition to the main pari-mutuel plant there will be windows on the mezzanine floor for the accommodation of those In the grandstand. There will be no clubhouse this year at least, and no effort will be made to complete the embellishment of the infield which has been planned. BURTON RACING SECRETARY. Most of the official family has been announced and one of the most recent appointments was that of Fred Burton as racing secretary. Burton is serving at Charles Town for the present meeting and is already preparing the book for the Florida season at the Hallendale course. Bob Frend, who officiated as starter at both Suffolk Downs and Rockingham Park, has been engaged to send the horses away and C. D. McClelland has been engaged as track superintendent. O. E. Pons, Jr., and Eddie Flynn will be placing judges and the various other officials will be named before many days. And it is proposed to change the name of the club from Hollywood, which suggests Los Angeles and C .lifornia, to something more suggestive of Florida. There have been so many unfulfilled promises since the new Florida course was first proposed that a doubt had been created that it would ever be completed. The club has had to go into t! e courts to have its permit to race sustained, and altogether there was reason for all the doubts that now have 1 een set to rest. HORNING MAJORITY STOCKHOLDER. J. C. Horning, who is the majority stockholder, is a contractor formerly of Pittsburgh. He has determined to go through with the project and he is taking a real pride in the construction. Before he absorbed enough of the stock of the Hollywood Club to obtain control, he had a considerable slice and he also had the contract to build. Within a short time it is promised a book of the meeting will be issued and the minimum purse will be 00, according to present plans. In the meantime this third course coming into the Southern Florida circuit, and racing on conflicting dates with the Hialeah Park meeting, will bring some complications. It is not possible for Miami, with all of its winter visitors, to successfully support two race meetings that conflict.
