view raw text
California By Kent Cochran Aspects of Overlap With Hollywood Park Broad Survey of California Racing Time Extent to Which Baseball Hurts Racing RacingGOLDEN GOLDEN GATE FIELDS Albany Calif May 6 During recent years thoroughbred racing in California has been steadily edging toward simultaneous opera ¬ tion in the northern and south ¬ ern sections of the statd This scrivener was a resident and an interested student of the sport when the Californiabred Morvich won the Kentucky Derby of 1922 and down through the 36 years since that epochal feat which fired the imagination of the states citizenry and eventually resulted in legalization of pari mutuel betting we have observed a steady movement toward more and more racing The first comeback step took place after Morvich inspired a desire to restore the sport here the initial public manifestation coming in the form of the betless meetihgs at old Tanforan which were sparkplugged by a group consisting of Adolf and Roidoiph Spreckels Frank Kelly Herbert Fleishbaeker Charles Tl Boots John W Marchbank and a few other men of wealth and standing who loved the blood horse and wanted to see racing restored to the state stateThose Those betless meetings were run two years at a big financial loss to their sponsors and then a few years later the late Judge Joseph A Murphy was brought from his Eastern activities to maneuver public parti ¬ cipation via means of the socalled optional betting So successful did the optional betting sport prove that in the third year of its operation the people voted in the present racing law in 1935 The enabling law be ¬ came effective the next year and the Stockton Fail was the first track to use the parimutuels parimutuelsTanforan Tanforan Only Major Track TrackThe The racing which followed wVs good but the meet ongs were spaced rather far apart for Tanforan was the only major track in existence Bay Meadows was soon built however and close on its heels came Santa Anita Then Del Mar arid Hollywood Park and at long last Golden Gate Fields Date schedules soon be ¬ came important But the meetings were spaced days or weeks apart There was always ample time for the stables td move from one track to another usually a week or more Special trains were the means of trans ¬ port vanning came into vogue several years later laterAs As each new track came into being the space be ¬ tween meetings diminished until there cams a time when each track was opening on the heels of the one before with only one day or two at the most between Then it became necessary in order to enable each track to race out its legal allotment that there be no break that the new track open its gates the day after the prior meeting ended The desire to enjoy more Saturdays spread the days over the calendar until some tracks saw the desirability of overlapping meetings by a few days This practice began two or three years ago and was found not to be harmful businesswise when the overlaps concerned the North and South 400 miles apart The practice seems to be growing just as other developments in the realm of racing thoroughbred harness and quarter horse have grown and progressed Thelate Bill Kyne ever a bold operator was the first to attempt an ex ¬ tended overlap He dare to open on Washingtons Birthday February 22 two years ago at a time when Santa Anita had practically two Weeks to go and de ¬ spite encountering bad weather his meeting was a profitable one oneFaced Faced with a similar situation Webb Everett has elected to accept practically a twoweeks overlap with Hollywood Park choosing to operate simultaneously with the South in May rather than February Track managers everywhere will be watching the situation with interest as also will the horsemen and the state racing board for each in a manner of speaking i a partner in the sport as regards profits profitsGate Gate Gets Replacements From Pleasanton PleasantonThe The overlap starts Thursday of this week the day Hollywood Park opens and continues until Monday May 19 closing date for Golden Gate Golden Gate has naturally lost a considerable number of horses Theyve been vanning southward at a great rate But as stables have been departing for the Southland stables from Pleasantbn and other outlying points have been mov ¬ ing into the vacated stalls From a seasonal high of about 1250 horses on hand two weeks ago the equine population has nowshrunk to around 800 with perhaps 30 headstill to arrive according to Supt Norvell Snyder SnyderRacing Racing secretary Lou Eilken does not expect the reduced number of horses to mean that his programs will be short of horses We will have plenty of horses to fill our entries he said and explained that a large number perhaps onethird of those present some weeks ago were not in racing condition tfcey were ail ¬ ing or in training but not yet ready to run whereas the percentage of the unreadys is now much smaller The onry fly in the ointment if itean be called that is the fact that the fields from this time forward will in general be of somewhat less class because many o the handicap and allowancegrade horses were sent to Hollywood Park Ther jockey colony will present a similar situation But as is the case with the horses horsesContinued Continued on Page Forty Two CALIFORNIA CALIFORNIABy By KENT COCIIRAiN Continued from Page Six Sixthere there will be an ample supply of riders on hand Summing up management expects the sport to continue as interesting as ever and foresees no drop in attendance or mutuel play providing the present ideal weather continues continuesBeginning Beginning next Monday Golden Gate will inaugurate an Armed Services Week The Oakland Naval Air Station will lead off with a day on Tuesday May 13 Mrs Helen Weston wife of Capt Wallace Wes ton USN former Annapolis football player and now commanding officer of the Oak ¬ land station will crown the winner of the feature race Other military installations around San Francisco bay are expected to participate on other days of the week Webb Everett says big league baseball has hurt the Golden Gate meeting to the ex ¬ tent of about 1000 fans each week day and 2000 on Saturdays Nevertheless the meeting is up one per cent in handle over the last comparable spring meeting 1955 though the attendance is down one per cent The weather is largely responsible for this slight attendance drop Everett says We had 13 days early in the meeting of the worst cold rain and mud in the tracks history and then along came the Giants
