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HOWARD BUYS BIG STUD FARM Acquires Jack Atkins San Ysidro Place Near Mexican Border. Expected to Ultimately Make Nursery Main Breeding Farm Place Has Excellent Training Track. LOS ANGELES, Calif., April 14. Sale of the old San Ysidro Stock Farm, about three miles north of the Mexican border town of Tijuana, was reported here today. Charles S. Howard, San Francisco automobile man and owner of Kayak II., Seabiscuit and other famous horses, was the purchaser, while the estate of the late Jack P. Atkin was the seller. Howard will use the property for a breeding farm and as a southern recreational and training grounds for his extensive racing stable, according to report. It is expected that the San Ysidro nursery ultimately will become the main breeding and training establishment and that the Willits Ranch, which Howard has owned for many years, will be maintained, insofar as thoroughbreds are concerned, as supplementary to. the southern property. An excellent training track, an essential factor in a horse ranch, has long been in use at San Ysidro, whereas there is no bona fide training course at the Willits place. The purchase of San Ysidro Stock Farm was considered as another step in the well-defined movement toward establishment of thoroughbred nurseries and training ranches in San Diego County: Recently Frank Capra, motion-picture director, obtained a large tract adjoining Rancho San Luis Rey, the states most successful breeding farm, and is planning to develop it as a nursery. Other purchases of established or potential horse . ranches in the fertile and climatically ideal Fallbrook and other sections of the county, are understood to be in thi making, with Los Angeles sportsmen as the investors. Bing Crosby, L. D. Leighton, Louis Almgren, Hamilton H. Cotton and other racing enthusiasts operate ranches in San Diego County. INTERESTING HISTORY. The San Ysidro Farm has had. an interesting history. It was established by Marvin Allen nearly twenty years ago, when Allen was a partner of the Coffroth-Withington-Atkin-Long combination, which operated the old Tijuana race track and gambling casinos with tremendous "profit during the lush years immediately following the WorldWar. When the combination split up, with the rise of the Long-Bowman-Crof ton regime, Allen decided to quit racing and sold out his ranch and stock to Atkin, who likewise has pulled out of the Tijuana amusement and recreational business, but desired to go into the breeding end of the sport as a hobby. A large band of brood mares was collected by Atkin, and the stallions Penalo, Enoch, Justice F. and Fair Ball placed in the stud. The ranch was just getting on a sound producing basis when Atkins health failed, but he carried on as best he could despite this handicap, until his death about a year ago. Roy Cloud, able nursery manager, has been in charge of the ranch for the last twelve years. Atkins widow, residing in the show-place home established by Atkin fifteen years ago at Pasadena, sold the farm to Howard. It is. understood that Howard will visit the ranch over the week-end with a view to laying out plans for major improvements and enlargement of the place.
