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REFLECTIONS By Nelson Dunstan Whitney Endorses New L I Track Hudson Park Asks License Largest Track in America But What Happens to Saratoga SaratogaNEW NEW YORK N Y June 21 Some time back in April our friend Bill Corum was laid up in his hotel with a case of influenza At that time he penned a story of the contem ¬ plated track on Long Island after the war is over and added this is the solution to the saving of Saratoga We did not agree with Mm and said so At the bottom of that particular column Bill said and there it is Nelson w r a p p e d up like a big candy Easter egg lor your best girl m pmk notions me egg I mean not the girl Fault it if you can We could not fault it nor did we want to at that moment for we had been pledged to offtherecord silence In our daily stint we have never divulged a con ¬ fidence and we never will But in the past week there have been statements which no longer hold us to our off the record pledge Col John Hay Whitney has en ¬ dorsed Bill Corums plan of Greentree Park on Long Island and as was to be expected just a few days later Fred Ryan secretary of the New Jersey State Racing Commis sion announced that the Hudson Park Racing Association had applied for a license to construct a track just across the Lincoln tunnel or in other words a track just eight minutes from Broadway and 42nd Street in New York YorkJust Just a few weeks ago we saw the drawings and the landscaping pic ¬ tures of Hudson Park It will be one of the largest and also one of the most beautiful tracks anywhere in the world While the beauty has not been spared the construction will be such that the comfort for the public will be the first consideration The architects have made a study of every modern race track in this country and will build so that there will be little or no crowding at the mutuel windows and as near as pos ¬ sible the elimination of fans be ¬ ing shut but at the last minute We have not seen so much detail of Greentree Park but if we know Bill Corum and his associates in this pro ¬ posed Long Island project it will also be a beautiful race track and one capable of holding much greater throngs than is now the case While Hudson Park will only be a run through the Lincoln tunnel the new Long Island site is much closer than that of any Long Island track now operating operatingIn In the socalled March of Progress it was inevitable that a new track should come on Long Island and also one strategi ¬ cally located on the Jersey side In the postwar setup New Jersey is going to play a very prominent part in racing for Eugene Mori Walter Donovan and the men behind the sport over there are the pro ¬ gressive type who realize that giving the public the best in any line is good sound business In New York we Tiave only one race track that is capable of housing a throng of presentday size and that is Bel ¬ mont Park How the fans have taken the beating week after week at Jamaica and Aqueduct is just a bit beyond our under ¬ standing The managements of these tracks are not to blame The sport grew out of all proportions in a very few short years A new track on Long Island and one on the New Jersey side are absolutely necessary if racing throngs are to be given the conveniences they are certainly en ¬ titled to at the prices asked at the admis ¬ sion gates But in all this there is one point that is regretted by everyone we have talked with from here to the Pacific Coast and that is the possible passing of Sara ¬ toga as the Newmarket of America AmericaIf If there is any fault to find with these new tracks it is the possible passing of Saratoga the traditional center of racing in America today There is no denying the fact that racing has become more commercial ever since the adoption of mutucls in New York state If Saratoga goes by the boards it is going to be kind of rough on those of us who stoutly maintain that there is sportsman ¬ ship left in this game It would seem that those in charge of the sport would certainly work out some plan to save the upstate Spa Everyone we meet keeps regretting the trans ¬ fer of the Saratoga meeting to New York Many of them will tell you that the transfer of the upstate meeting to Long Island for transpor ¬ tation purposes is a lot of hokum One fellow said to us yesterday Why dont you stop being so stub ¬ born in this matter and face the facts Thats all right but when we asked him just what are the facts his answer was Saratoga is a dead duck If that is so then it is only the larger return to the rac ¬ ing association and the state Should that prove to be the case it will be a damning indictment of those who are in charge of the sport in New York state stateSome Some people are under the impression that the track on Long Island and also that which will be built at the Jersey end of the Lincoln tunnel will stage a bitter fight for August patronage Nothing is farther from the truth It may be that Greentree Park will take the dates now assigned the Saratoga Association but do not think for a minute that Gene Mori and his New Jersey associates at Hudson Park have any idea of operating the Jersey track in August They will continue Garden State Park as in the past few years until early in September and then if granted the license will operate Hudson Park in the late fall If anything they will oppose Empire City and if it be true that the Empire City officials are planning a new track farther north or on the old Butler estate they will have a good chance of drawing much of the metropolitan patron ¬ age Our hopes for success to Bill Corum and Colonel Whitney for Greentree Park are sincere but we still fail to see where the construction of this Long Island track wilj m any way prove the savior of Saratoga
