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if TURF PUBLICISTS J j £ EDDIE READ IJ Del Mar Race Course ♦ _ Important factors in behind-the-scenes activities at the nations race tracks are the men engaged i?i public relations work. Daily Racing Forv herewith publicizes the publicity man in the twelfth of a series of profiles on members of the Turf Publicists of America. Eddie Read, assistant to president Don* Smith and director public relations at the Del Mar Turf Club, has literally "grown up" with thoroughberd racing in California. For the past 20 years he has been actively associated with the sport either as a turf writer or publicity man. His connection at Del Mar goes back to 1938, the second year of operation at the popular southern California course "where the turf meets the surf." He has been with Del Mar every season since, except for 1940 and 1941, when he was a turf writer for the Los Angeles Herald-Express. Read first became infected with the racing bug in 1937. That was at Santa Anita Park, where he represented the Arcadia Daily Tribune as sports editor. The following season, he covered racing and made a handicap for the Hollywood Reporter In-glewood Daily News and the now defunct Pasadena Post. It was in March, 1938, that he went to work for the Hollywood Turf Club, then under construction, in preparation for its inaugural season. Two seasons as assistant director of publicity at Hollywood Park, followed by similar positions at Del Mar the same years, gave Read his initial baptism of fire in press relations. Hired by Fred Purner of Santa Anita as an assistant in the fall of 1939, Read forsook the publicity field, when an opening came on the sports staff of the Herald-Express just before the Santa Anita season opened. Did Publicity at M-G-M Turf feature writing, general sports assignments and make-up duties occupied Read for two full years at the Herald-Express under Sports Editor George T. Davis. A tour of duty in the publicity department at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios followed for the next five months. Then came Uncle Sam with an insistent nod and Read joined the Army. The latter assignment lasted three years and seven months with Read editing the post newspaper at Camp Callan, near San Diego, as well as being the staff sergeant in charge of all public relations for most of his Army hitch. He served as a sports staffer for a spell on the now departed San Diego Daily Journal until September, 1946, when he returned to Santa Anita with Purner, an association that lasted through six seasons. Publicity chores at Santa Anita and Del Mar, as well as a partnership in an advertising agency in San Diego with Walter Dauchy, filled out the span from the end EDDIE READ of the war until 1954. At that time, additional duties made his Del Mar position a 12 months assignment, and in January, 1956, he was appointed assistant to the president of the turf-surf course. In addition to his public relations work, Read has been active in other turf endeavors. He was retained by Louis B. Mayer during the three-year period when the motion picture magnate was dispersing his thoroughbred empire. This led to publicizing auction sales in the West for the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association and the Fasig-Tipton Co. Read has been in thoroughbred , sales promotion work for several years and writes a weekly column on United States racing for the Sporting Life of London, England. Read married his secretary, Eleanor Robinson, in 1948. They are the parents of two sons, Chris, 7, and Tim, 4. The Reads live in Rancho Santa Fe, four miles northwest of the Del Mar racetrack. Eddie was born 40 years ago in Peter-boro, Ontario, Canada. He came to California with his family in 1927 and attended schools in Los Angeles and Inglewood.
