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vf? 4°"*" $ BETWEEN RACES * osca* am HOLLYWOOD PARK, Inglewood, Calif., June 22. — Americas newest race course, the Solano County Fair near Vallejo, bids fair to also be one of the nations most successful if the inaugural and mid-week crowds and play may be taken as a criterion. The Vallejo track has an ideal location, tion, being being situated situated a a bit bit northeast northeast 01 of tion, being being situated situated a a bit bit northeast northeast 01 of the city and adjacent to a four lane highway, U. S. 40 between San Francisco-Oakland and Sacramento. Vallejo is a teeming city of about 80,000 well known throughout the nation as the home of the Mare Island Navy Yard. The track draws a large percentage of its patrons from the populous San Francisco Bay Area. The building of the fair and race track was due largely to the single handed efforts of Al St. John, a Navy yard worker, with a keen sense of civic progressiveness and pride. He has been talking the idea of a fair and track in Solano County for the last 10 years, and some three years ago its enthusiasm caught on with the towns leading citizens, and the fair became a reality. The major building program was completed before any governmental restrictions went into effect, but the place still lacks barns. All horses which compete are vanned to the track the day of the race from northern Californias popular all year round training center, Pleasantort. Bay Meadows lent the fair some of its furniture and operational know how. The meet is run on sporting and informal lines and it would not be surprising if, in the immediate years ahead, Vallejo took its place along with other major fairs in the state such as Sacramento, Stockton, Santa Rosa, San Mateo, Alameda Pleasanton, and Fresno. AAA OMiente is hopeful that the renewal of the Powder Vallejo Track Rated Outstanding Success Powder Puff Is on Tap for Caliente Patrons Pastime of Millions Series Nears End Burke Sees State Breeding Coming of Age Puff Derby there on Sunday will provide a feminine rider worthy of matching against Miss Wantha Davis, admittedly Americas greatest girl jockey. Miss Davis has just about raced herself out of competition among her own sex, convincing even staid Marylanders of her ability in just cantering to score in the Pimlico ladies race this spring. Daily Racing Form chart caller E. Palmer Heagerty remarked that after that race that Miss Davis was as good as most of the regular riders on the Atlantic Seaboard. Walter C. Marty, director of racing at Caliente, finds that his public fancies such spectacles as a Powder Puff Derby, providing they are not run too often. Most of the gals who will compete are drawn from the ranks of Hollywood cowgirls who work in pictures. These girls not only have looks, but are extremely versatile equestriennes, specializing in trick riding. There is a lot of difference, however, in being able to perform acrobatics with a horse, and judge pace. While the mounts in the Powder Puff will be chosen by lot, the favorite among the riders is Miss Polly Burson, who is a star of pictures, and who also races her own stable at Caliente and on California tracks. A va A Appointment of John Maluvius as racing secretary at Del Mar was not unexpected, and director of racing Webb Everett explains that Del Mars former secretary, Herman Sharpe, will remain as assistant secretary. Sharpe, one of the ablest men in the West, and who time after time has demonstrated ability to get keen and well balanced contests with few horses, is a protege of Everett, took over at Del Mar when Maluvius went to war as an Army ordnance officer with the understanding that he was pinch hitting, and that whenever Maluvius wanted the job back, it was his. Sharpe proved his ability several seasons ago at Santa Rosa when he had but 142 horses to run an 11 -day meeting. Naturally, horses ran back quite often, and their respective merits became clear by mid-meeting. Skillful conditioning with liberal usage of allowances and penalties kept the competition open right through the final day, and a new record for a California fair was set for number of photo finishes. Maluvius has been under exclusive contract to Hollywood Park ever since the war, and Jack F. Mackenzie in effect loaned him to Del Mar. Maluvius felt he was getting a trifle dull by being "in action" only 50 days of the year, hence his desire to work at more than one California meeting. AAA Carleton Burke, director of racing at Santa Anita, is nearing the end of one of the most extensive historical studies of California racing, a series which has been appearing in the Thoroughbred of California for the last several years under the title of "Pastime of Millions." Burke started from the very beginning of the thoroughbred in California, and continued it through the legiliza-tion of racing in 1934. "The series started out as an effort to provide the public with some of the background and the glorious heritage of racing»in our state," explains Burke. "A new generation has grown up since racing was halted shortly after the turn of the century, and it was Continued on Page Thirty-Seven BETWEEN RACES I By OSCAR OTIS Continued from Page Forty-Eight to acquaint our new patrons and potential fans with our colorful history that the stories were written. People are pretty well aware of the history of racing in the last 14 years, so I do not think it proper to carry the research on beyond 1934. On checking over the number and quality of thoroughbreds produced in our state, which hit rock bottom in about 1915, and comparing the growth made since the legalization of racing, I am convinced that California is leaving its adolescent state of development, and is about to embark upon a new era of breeding which will in fact bring back the golden days when the pro- . duce of the farms of James Ben Ali Hag-gin, Leland Stanford, Theodore Winters, I and E. J. Lucky Baldwin, to name only % few, made California-breds world famous. AAA "I believe Louis B. Mayer has done California breeding a tremendous amount of good by demonstrating what could be done with homebreds," continued Burke. "It is remarkable that California breeding has j accomplished what it has in such a com- I paratively short space of time, only 15 1 years." Burke failed to add that he him- I j self had much to do establishing the sport : in California, with its resultant nourishment of breeding. The only West Coast member of The Jockey Club, Burke served as chairman of the first California Racing Board for a period of six years, set up the rules under which racing here is governed, and, after his retirement from the board, was active in policy making at Santa Anita which has made that track one of the great racing centers of the world. He also was instrumental in founding the California Breeders Association, which now numbers nearly 600 members. "Pastime of Millions" will be printed in book form as a public service by the breeders association. The work is considered an important one on California history as well as being fascinating reading by anyone interested in the thoroughbred. Burke was aided in his immense amount of research by Kent Cochran, editor of the Thoroughbred of California.
