Horses & Courses

Would William Woodward's Granville, favorite at 2-to-1, have speed and courage enough to repeat the victories of his sire, Gallant Fox, and Omaha, by the same sire? Or would bad racing luck--his jockey was thrown at the start of the Kentucky Derby; Bold Venture beat him by a nose in the Preakness--cost him this race too? Ten horses, bunched in a feathery cloud of dust, swung into the last turn, and Jockey Jimmy Stout on Granville made his bid. Granville caught the leader, John Hay Whitney's Mr. Bones. Then down the stretch, while 35,000 people shouted, he outran his own bad luck. Mr. Bones was two and a half lengths back at the finish, Hollyrood was third.

That, last week, was the Arlington Classic, feature race of the 30-day meeting at the Midwest's greatest race track. Purse for the eighth running of the Classic was $35,000. That the Arlington Classic will eventually be worth $100,000 and the most celebrated horse race in the world was the proud prospect offered to Chicago last week by the Arlington Park Jockey Club's Founder John Daniel Hertz. Discussing the track's policy and progress, Mr. Hertz announced that since 1929 Arlington Park has repaid all but $700,000 of the $5,000,000 debt it incurred seven years ago. When the $700,000 is written off, Arlington Park, only non-profit race track in the U. S., will put its surplus into plant improvements, richer prizes. When prizes reach a reasonable limit, Chicago racing will turn over $500,000 a year to charity.

For the unique generosity of the Arlington Park Jockey Club Chicago is indebted, not to the desire of its members to make a social splash, but, indirectly, to Racketeer Al Capone. Arlington Park was built in 1927, the year Illinois racing was legalized, by a California promoter named H. D. ("Curly") Brown. It lost money. In 1929 Capone offered to buy the track for $1,500,000. Promoter Brown jumped at the offer. Because the deal might well have meant the end of Illinois horse racing, Mr. Hertz, whose Reigh Count had won the Kentucky Derby in 1928, asked him to call it off. Brown offered to sell the track to Sportsman Hertz for $2,500,000 if he could raise the money in 24 hours. It took Mr. Hertz just 20 minutes to extract the $2,500,000 from a group of civic-minded Chicagoans like Warren Wright, Otto Lehmann, Silas Strawn, Leonard Florsheim, Charles A. McCulloch.

What had started as an enterprise of civic pride went on the same way. Members of the club agreed to take no profits from the track, put $2,500,000 more into improvements. Arlington Park became to Chicago's five race tracks what Belmont Park is to New York City's four. In 1931, its best season, $18,000,000 was wagered in 30 days. What improvements to make after purses have been raised may be a problem. The track already has the largest grandstand in the U. S., an "eye in the sky" to photograph close finishes at the rate of 165 frames a second, an electric totalizator to flash changing pari-mutuel odds on every race, a public address system, a polo field in the infield.

Arlington Park's operating methods are remarkable because they are unique. Its success is remarkable because it is nothing of the sort. A wave to reform Reform laws against gambling swept the U. S. in 1933. Gambling is now legal in 26 states and the renaissance of horse racing that started in 1932 is still booming. Since 1933 14 new tracks have opened and $3,000,000,000 have been wagered. As noteworthy as the success of Chicago's Arlington Park has been that of at least two other major U. S. establishments officially dedicated to improving the breed of horses.

California's Santa Anita is the product of innumerable gold fillings by Dr. Charles H. Strub, whose chain of dentist parlors gave him the resources to buy into a San Francisco baseball club, later to join Cineman Hal Roach in putting $1,250,000 into a race track on the site of the late Elias Jackson ("Lucky") Baldwin's famed Santa Anita Rancho. Since Santa Anita Park opened on Christmas Day 1934, racing has become a major Hollywood hobby.

Its aquamarine grandstand on an ordinary racing afternoon houses more flashy celebrities than any other in the world, but the track's real "take" comes from lowly Los Angeles punters. In its first season, Santa Anita got back its whole original investment. Last season was even more profitable. Its "handle" (i. e., total of all bets made through its pari-mutuel windows) was $25,250,000. The track's gross income from admission fees and 5% of bets was $3,000,000. Currently Santa Anita is planning to up its total of purses and stakes for next winter's racing to $800,000, hopes the California Horse Racing Board will not permit another track near Los Angeles.

Unlike Californians, New Englanders are traditionally hard-headed and closefisted. That generations of economic inhibitions have turned them at last into a race of spendthrifts is the conclusion implicit in the way they are currently patronizing New England's four new race tracks, Rockingham Park, Agawam, Suffolk Downs and Narragansett Park.

Rhode Island's Narragansett has been a good thing ever since its fast start two years ago, when the State Legislature weakened before smart lobbying and legalized pari-mutuel horse-race gambling. Within a month the Narragansett Racing Association was incorporated and before the summer was done held its first race with paint still wet on the grandstand. The track takes 62% of all bets made, keeps the "breaks" (i. e., odd pennies left over after bets are paid off to an even nickel). Including the breaks, Narragansett's take last year was $2,174,000. Concessions, programs, gate receipts, added another $457,000. After handing out $717,000 for purses and paying all other expenses, Narragansett showed a clear profit of $507,000 for the year, which made it financially the best track in the U. S.

Mainspring in the promotion of Narragansett was a onetime Rhode Island mill operator named Walter E. O'Hara, a fast-witted, hot-tempered Irishman with enterprise and gall. He and some friends, including Providence's Judge James E. Dooley, onetime president of the Canadian-American Hockey League, bought the 130 acres on which the track is built from an oldtime Woonsocket saloonkeeper named John F. Letendre for $150,000. Promoter O'Hara gets $75,000 a year as managing director of the track, holds 142,000 of the 350,000 shares of common stock which are its only outstanding obligations. Two years ago, the original 28 stockholders put up $450,000 for Narragansett bonds which have since been repaid out of profits.

Last week they were busy cashing in on their profits. Each member agreed to sell 40% of his common stock holdings. If the whole 140,000 shares are sold, the members will divide $980,000 and still have 210,000 shares, for which the offering price is $8.75 per share. Appropriately, the stock was being sold last week by August Belmont & Co., founded in 1837 by the same precocious young German who became President of The Jockey Club, gave his name to New York's Belmont Park.

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