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Beulah Park I By Dick Kumble Good Officials Are Racings Prime Asset Handle Responsible Positions With Skill Beulah Park Staff Among Best in Nation NationBEUEAH BEUEAH PARK Grove City Ohio May 14 The cast of officials who govern the administration of rac ¬ ing daily from one end of America to the other today offer what can be considered the sports prime asset No one sim ¬ ply becomes a steward Years of work the compilation of nu ¬ merous skills and endless areas of learning make these titled and responsible positions truly a lib ¬ eral arts and sciences degree of its own accord With no state steward required to represent Ohio Beu ¬ lah Park has a staff of three men They are Dr James G Cattlett William M Shewbridge and Dr Alex L Copeland Jr To many of the patrons of rac ¬ ing the names of stewards are merely three lines on a daily program and also Those men who decide foul claims To the people on racings interior that con ¬ cept is too irregular to discuss The job of steward is much more an active task constantly demanding of itself than a title titleDr Dr Catlett made one of the greatest contributions to racing in the 20th Century In 1933 he introduced salvia and urine tests which have become a household trademark in the protection of racing from undesir ¬ ables It took only a short time for these chemical concepts to be accepted in all parts Catlett received his degree in veterinary medicine at the United States College for Veterinary Surgeons in Washington D C He entered the U S Armys Medical Corps after grad ¬ uation and served with the cavalry and artillery After being released from active duty he was appointed as ¬ sistant to the state vet at Leesburg Fla He served as city and county vet in Miami after that and soon opened a private practice In 1932 Catlett entered rac ¬ ing for the first time on the staff at Hialeah Race Course After his multiple findings were instigated he was appointed chief veterinarian by the New York State Racing Commission and spent his summer months in that sector He was in charge of all drug tests and administration of same sameAppointed Appointed Chief Vet by The Jockey Glub GlubCatlett Catlett rotated between Florida and New York until 1942 when he was recalled into active military service as a colonel and was stationed in the western remount area in California having much authority with the advent of the canine corps After serving for lengthy periods in North Africa and India he was inactivated with the peace The Jockey Club in New York ap ¬ pointed Catlett chief veterinarian and he also worked at Hialeah and Tropical Parks each winter In 1952 he entered the stewards stand for the first time at the Detroit Race Course MRA and served in this capacity at Keeneland Tropical Hialeah plus Beulah Park since 1955 He calls Miami his home with his wife Mrs Catherine Catlett and they plan to travel south after his impending duties at Detroit Saratoga and Beulah in the fall fallThere There is hardly a race track east of the Mississippi that Bill Shewbridge hasnt help get its proverbial legs The native of Baltimore trained horses from 1920 for 11 years mostly for his wife the late Mrs Edith I Shewbridge who passed away in 1954 after a lengthy illness In 1931 Bill began as an official at Hagers town Md where Harold Bestor was general manager and Ed Brennan held the job of racing secretary Shewbridge was a placing judge before traveling to Ebensburg Pa where Charles Schwab of Bethlehem Steel ran three separate meetings and hired him as track superintendent Brennan was also active at Ebensburg along with Ty Shea who was starting out as a placing judge In 1944 Shewbridge was appointed steward at Cumberland Md and held that position plus racing secretary there and the others in the fa ¬ mous halfmile circuit that encompassed Hagerstown Timonium Marlboro and Bel Air AirNew New Jersey Assignments Next NextShewbridge Shewbridge also served at Randall as steward Suffolk New Orleans Agawaum Mass was secretary at Wheeling Downs for nine years and reigned as state steward in West Virginia at Wheeling Waterford and Charles Town He was Sunshine Parks first secretary in the tough days when that track had but 430 horses for a 50day meeting Bill has also been employed at all New Jersey courses and at Gulfstream Park He leaves Ohio after the current meet and heads for Mon ¬ mouth and after working Atlantic City will return home for a wellearned vacation He plans to visit his sons William K of Bethesda a mining engineer cur ¬ rently operating a stone quarry in Rockville Md for the C J Langenfelder Company and James D a lay ¬ out engineer for Republic Aviation in Babylon Long Island NY NYDr Dr Alex Copeland the smiling Hollywood Flor idian will serve as steward at Randall Park near Cleve ¬ land later this summer He was raised in Detroit and graduated from the college of veterinary medicine at Michigan State University in 1924 He did postgrad ¬ uate work at the University of Pennsylvania and worked for the noted Dr McCulley in New York before opening an extensive private practice in Grosse Point Mich His father Alex Copeland I was a trainer of thoroughbreds and his son also began to condition horses when racing was legalized in the state of Michi ¬ gan He did this work until 1941 when he was ap Continued on Page Sixteen BEULAH PARK PARKBy By DICK RUMBLE Continued from Page Seven Sevenpointed pointed vet representing the state and the racing commission He served briefly as a patrol judge and has been a steward for 15 years working at Randall Detroit Ha ¬ zel Park Gulfstream and the Balmoral ArlingtonWashington meets His son Alex Copeland III is 27 and works for the Michigan State Racing Commission He is isa a graduate of his fathers alma mater at Lansing LansingAl Al Hudson agent for jockey Buck Thorn burg and apprentice Jesse Davidson vis ¬ ited his father Bill Hudson who operates the Beulah Park jockeys quarters D G Post and W B Alexander are cur ¬ rently tied for the lead among local train ¬ ers but are pressed by Enrico Rinaldi The Florida State Racing Commission rul ¬ ing on jockey Salvadore Zamudio now in Mexico should come as good news to his close friend and countryman Mitchell Aboumrad who campaigns a public string at Cahokia Downs The latest odds board of the Amreiacn Totalisator is on view in Beulahs infield Richard Bailey of Covington Kyf is on the job as official clocker here each ayem Beu ¬ lah is west of Columbus the home of Ohio State University Not far from the track is Jet Stadium home of the Colum ¬ bus team currently battling for the lead in the AAA International League
