view raw text
Carey, Bennigsen Named To Posts at Hawthorne To Serve as Managing Director, General Manager, Respectively Robert F. Carey will serve as managing director and Raymond C. Bennigsen will be general manager of the Hawthorne race track, members of the Thomas Carey estate, owners of the course, announced here yesterday. Carey succeeds to the post vacated through the death of Charles W. Bidwill, who served in that capacity in 1946, the first year that the Careys operated the track themselves. Bennigsen, who was assistant to Bidwill in his various enterprises and who last week was named president of the Chicago Cardinals professional football team as well as head of the Bentley, Murray Printing Co., both owned by Bidwill, served in practically the same capacity last year as he will this season. His duties, Carey said, will consist mainly of handling all the details connected with the management and organization of the track, whose 35-day meeting gets under way September 2 and continues on through October 11. Carey and Bennigsen stated that it was their intention to maintain as many from the old organization as possible and that they hoped to carry out as best they could the plans that Bidwill had laid out for this year. "No great changes are planned," Bennigsen stated. "We will offer the traditional stakes, headed by the Hawthorne Gold Cup, and in the near future will work out a purse distribution program." In his statement to the press, Carey stated: "It will be our aim to bring Hawthorne up to the position it deserves as the oldest track in the sector." He revealed that the beautification program would continue and that as soon as materials are available for construction work, many changes that they have in mind will be put into effect. A race honoring the memory of Bidwill. who was chairman of the board of directors of the Chicago Business Mens Racing Association, whose lease on the Hawthorne track expired in the fall of 1945, is expected to be added to the Hawthorne program. While the full list of racing officials for the Hawthorne meeting has not been compiled yet, Bennigsen stated that Lawrence C. Bogenschutz again will serve as racing secretary and that Monte Weil and James McGill will be the association stewards. The Lincoln Fields meeting opens at the Hawthorne track a week from Monday, May 12, and will be under the direction of Col. Matt J. Winn, executive director of the Lincoln Fields Jockey Club. Edward J. Fleming recently was elected president of the latter organization and a group headed by himself has held its offer to buy the track accepted but the sale hasnt been consummated as yet. Also figuring prominently in the new set-up but possessing no official titles are Frank J. Moynihan, husband of the late Ruth Carey, and George F. Barry, husband of the former Margaret Carey.
