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Agawam President Buys Course in Massachusetts 9 Track Located at Great Harrington Seek Dates Plan Two Meetings of Seventeen Days Each to Start in June Gurnett and Mack New Owners. NEW YORK, N. Y., Dec. 23. At least one race track in addition to Suffolk Downs is virtually certain to run in Massachusetts next year. This will be Great Barrington, up in Berkshire County, just across the Connecticut and upper New York state lines. The course has been purchased by Dan Gurnett, who was president and principal owner of Agawam Park in Hampden County, where racing was outlawed, and Eddie Mack, well known sports promoter and race track publicity director. Great Barringtons new owners applied for dates yesterday, requesting a total of thirty-four days. They wish to run two seasons of seventeen days each, begin-ing in June. Only thirty days are now open on the Massachusetts calendar, but Mack stated yesterday that he believed a deal could be made with Suffolk whereby the Boston course would relinquish four days to Great Barring-ton. He said that if he and Gurnett were granted only thirty days they would run two fifteen-day sessions. TO SPEND 25,000. It is believed that a sum in the neighborhood of 6,000 was paid for the course. The new owners plan .25,000 worth of improvements. Great Barrington is a half-mile track that has been used in the past mainly for Fair meetings. Gurnett and Mack will erect a six furlongs chute, build new barns to accommodate 600 horses, construct a clubhouse along the lines of the one at TZockingham Park, and extend the stand, which now seats 3,500 persons. The American totalisator will be installed at Great Barrington. The course is one of the oldest race tracks in the country. It was built ninety-seven years ago. It has the most picturesque setting of any New England track. While it naturally does not have the steel and concrete construction of modern tracks, its wooden stand, constructed in Continued on twentieth page. J AGAWAM f 1 PRESIDENT BUYS COURSE IN BAY STATE Continued from first page. p part of solid mahogany, is a . sturdy structure a and has been kept in excellent repair. The t: track itself is a good one, and is safe, accord-ing i, to horsemen who have raced at the Fairs t there. , Great Barrington is 160 miles from Boston. C Gurnett and Mack anticipate drawing little the Hub section. The 0 or no patronage from t track is nine miles from the Connecticut line, a and ten miles from the New York boundary. I 1 1 It is these sections they will rely upon to i jS support the track. They are within easy center of 2,000,000 a access of a population I j i inhabitants. 1 Gurnett, a Boston financier, is best known t to the racing world as the man who took t over Agawam Park when it was in shaky f financial condition and, after investing a j large personal fortune in the track, put it T upon a sound business basis. At the referendum voted by counties as a local option , measure in Massachusetts this fall, the Agawam , sport was killed. Berkshire County, site of Great Barrington, voted for racing by a . majority of 2,800. Mack is best known as a Boston sports promoter who enjoyed tremendous success as the manager of the. Boston Garden in the heyday of that sporting arena. Later he j owned and managed the Argonne Athletic Club, which was also a highly successful 1 enterprise. He was one of the leading advocates , of racing in New England, becoming 1 1 the first publicity director of Rockingham Park, first New England track to open. He was later connected with the Agawam Park publicity department. He also served as a : racing official at the Fair meetings in Great Barrington; He is one of the most widely known sports figures in the country. Gurnett will act as president of the new organization, known as the Berkshire Jockey Club. If the services of Eddie Brennan, former Agawam Park manager, cannot be obtained, Mack will serve as general ager, as well as on the board of directors. "Ty" Shea, who acted as secretary at Aga-L warn,, will serve in the same capacity at , Great Barrington.
