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BETWEEN RACES By OSCAR OTIS HOLLYWOOD PARK Inglewood Calif June 9 A new format for Southern California equine activity is in prospect and next year there will be with the exception of the pre Christmas period something in the way of racing divided among thor ¬ oughbreds quarter horses and har ¬ ness racers Harness people are en ¬ thused over the new law which passed the Legislature assuring seven more days for sulky competition and which will enable the Western Harness Association to offer spring and fall split meetings instead of alternating spring and fall There is every possibility that the present law permitting quarter horse racing in every county will be amended to perhaps 20 days in the north and 20 days in the south excluding of course fairs and which would permit a vast building program at Los Alamitos quarter horse track The law would however remove the threat of quarter horse tracks springing up at 57 new lo ¬ cations in the state an item which has given a bit of worry to some turf leaders and perhaps rightly so Frank Vessels president of Los Alamitos tells us he will co ¬ operate with the harness folks who hereafter will have fixed instead of floating dates in seeing these two asso ¬ ciations do not conflict in the matter of dates Thus the turf picture in Southern California will jell something like this Santa Anita in the winter harness racing in the spring Hollywood Park Del Mar and Pomona in the sum ¬ mer harness racing and quarter horse racing in the fall Pat Doherty president of Western Harness remarks that fixed dates will add to both the growing public appeal of the sulky sport and also create a greater incentive to own and breed trotters and pacers in California CaliforniaA A A A AThe The quarter horses whom many thought would be popular only in a setting of sagebrush astounded most New Format in Prospect for West Coast Sport Year Round Activity Seen for Los Angeles Short Horse Meets Show Tremendous Growth Nevada to Insist on Metropolitan Racing Racingeverybody everybody with their success this spring and with ex ¬ pansion of the plant to properly accommodate its patrons there is no telling where the levellingoff point will be This expansion incidentally is centered around an in ¬ field grandstand so the horses will race down a straight ¬ away between crowds of people California law requires at last a halfmile circular track for horses to pull up after the straightaway from an elongated chute racing An in ¬ field stand would be ideal for this type of entertainment In case you are interested Los Alamitos hit a new high of 402358 for a single days parimutuel handle averaged 261417 and had a new top attendance of 9979 for a single day There are no comments to the effect that Southern California will be overraced under this setup even considering the fact that three other areas will depend to some extent upon the area for patronage during the coming year Caliente with its Sunday only programs draws almost as many fans from Los Angeles as it does from adjacent San Diego Las Vegas will of course lean heavily upon Los Angeles patronage and Phoenix of a winter time gets considerable drop in play from An gelenos who dude ranch it in Arizona during the often chill days of winter hereabouts Few people realize it but if the three winter monts are disregarded the San Fran ¬ cisco Bay area has what amounts to continuous racing and there has been no suggestion there of too much rac ¬ ing In this survey we are including such meetings as Pleasanton plus the fairs at Sacramento Stockton Santa Rose San Mateo and Vallejo So important does the bay area patronage loom in the figures of these fairs that the State Fair has always resisted and successfully any at ¬ tempt for a major track in the bay area to overlap Last year there were 438 racing days in California from a pos ¬ sible 313 the calendar year less Sundays of which 269 were for major tracks 40 for Western Harness 16 for quarter horses 27 for a combination meeting and 86 for the fairs If you add in the prospective new days and Caliente and Las Vegas 1954 will see about 572 racing days catering chief ly to Golden State fans and tourists Any lurking notion that might be entertained that Nevada will be a last frontier for people who have been loosely lumped together under the classification of unde ¬ sirables should be forgotten as of now for Jim Clark the recently appointed chief investigator and executive arm of the Nevada Racing Commission is here studying California supervisory procedures and who remarks Ne ¬ vada is keenly interested in seeing that racing is con ¬ ducted upon a highclass plane as much as a matter of state pride as anything else The state wants no part of any secondclass operation This is the reason for asking The Jockey Club to make a state steward available which the club did in the person of Jack Kennedy The Nevada commissioners all are horsemen and while they are not too familiar with metropolitan thoroughbred racing they do know horses as individuals Clark is a former captain of Nevada State Police and is a graduate of the FBI Po ¬ lice Academy He hails from a onetime gold mining center of Tonapah The Nevada commission is a fiveman affair and its members include Art Harris chairman a land and cattleman of Las Vegas Floyd Lamb a cattle ¬ man of Lincoln County BUI Goodman a retired mer merContinued Continued on Page fortyOne BETWEEN RACES RACESBy By OSCAR OTIS Continued from Page FortyFour FortyFourchant chant of Ely Harry Frost Reno printer and Jack Rcbbins Elko attorney and known in the capitol at Carson City as dean of the state senate Heretofore quar ¬ ter horse racing which flourishes at Win nemucca Reno and Ely has not been under state supervision but will be from now on onA A A A AHorses Horses and People Breaking with precedent Hollywood Park will announce its stakes program for the summer of 1954 before the close of this meeting will send racing secretary Johnny Maluvius east in the fall armed with said books and his pitch will be to horsemen toying with the idea of racing at Santa Anita this coming winter Well if you are coming to Cali ¬ fornia consider staying over for Hollywood racing here is what we have to offer For sheer perseverance few riders can match the record of apprentice Ralph J Smith at Caliente Upon his discharge from the Army he kept trying despite lack of success but finally got his first winner after 62 tries Smith can ride well but had terrific trouble getting worthwhile mounts Telecasts of big league baseball games will come west for the first time starting shortly with the exception of the World Series which has been shown on the coast for two years now and it has thrown Coast League ball into a fright Observers ex ¬ pect the telecasts to have little if any effect upon Saturday attendances at Hol ¬ lywood or at Del Mar later on in the summer season
