Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-10-12
MILLIONS IN RACE TRACKS.
INVESTMENTS IN HORSE RACING IN
AND AROUND NEW YORK.
Cost of a String of Runners Good Divi-
dends for the Members of
Some Jockey Clubs.

When that young giant of the West, Ell
Rio Rey, with the shoulder-blades of
three-year-old and the stride of an easy
conqueror, proclaimed himself invincible,
he really christened the new track in New
York The Morris brothers have spent
perhaps 100000 on it. In some respects
it is unique. Regal in its equipments, it
opens its gates as readily for free admis-
sion to the field as for the opulent patron
of the turf who pays handsomely for seat
in the grand stand. The significance of
this novelty is understood only when it is
remembered that, while some OF the tracks
in the vicinity of New York appeal more
particularly TO the wealthy, others seem to
have been established exclusively for the
pleasure and possible profit of those in
more moderate circumstances. There are
inveterate lovers of racing who would no
more dream of visiting one of halfa dozen
courses that could be mentioned than they
would of finding an evenings entertain
ment at a dime museum in preference to
the Madison Square Theater. At the new
track, to degree visible nowhere else, ex-
tremes meet. The Morris brothers have
made an innovation. Every feature of the
new enterprise, from programmes which
cost nothing to stakes fabulous in the
aggregate, bears evidence of lavish touch.
Racing tracks are spriuging up like
mushrooms in all directions For a year
it looked as though New Jersey would be-
come the paradise of the thoroughbred.
The Legislature Of the Empire State
frowned upon pool-selling, and racing
without pool-selling is as insipid as poker
played for nothing. New jersey felt the
effect at once. Clifton, really branch of
the Brighton Beach track, sprang into ex-
istence, and Guttenburg came into being.
Then the Legislature changed front and
the thirty-day law was passed. 1t allows
thirty days racing on any one course and
legalizes pool-selling for that period each
year. The compromise is little more than
a compromise in name. To have racing
in any desirable locality all the season
through, 1t is necessary only to baye
sufficient number of tracks. There is no
scarcity of them now. The capital they
have swallowed is something prodigious.
To the superficial observer it is represented
by land and buildings, and, strictly speak
ing, this may be the case but no estimate
would go far enough which did not round
out the subject by including horses and
stables and the cost of maintaining them.
A glance at the track proper, however, is
first in order.
Some wealthy Germans laid out the
half-mile track at Guttenburg at cost Of
perhaps $4,000.
George Engeman owns the Clifton track
and spent about $4,000 on it.
W. II. Eugeman built the Brighton
Beach track. 1t is worth $4,000, though
it cost nothing like that figure; the land
having fallen into Mr.. Engemans hands at
a time when the proyerbial song was really
its market value.
The new Dwyer track at Elizabeth, New
Jersey, on which horses hoofs will be
planted for the first time this month, has
cost not less than S250,000. 1t is practi-
cally owned by the Dwyer brothers, al
though some of their friends have little
stock in it.
The Linden Blooded Horse Association
will open Its new track, which is also at
Elizabeth, New Jersey, some time this
month. A son of Attorney General Stock
ton of that State is heavily interested in
it, and good many influential New Jer-
sey politicians will profit by its success.
Not less than $4,000 will have been ex-
pended when the starters flag drops for the
first time there. 1t looked as though there
might be war to the knife between the
Linden Association and the Dryers, with
the choice of racing days as casus belli;
but hostilities have been happily averted
and no conflict of dates is impending.
The Monmouth Park Association aban-
:, . "a l u.
but it will make lusty bid for front-rank
honors next summer. D. D. Withers,
Pierre Lorillard, A. J. Cassatt and the
George Lorillard estate are opening
plethoric pocketbooks, and while the old
track is being used for training purposes,
there is to be a new one close at hand.
New and old will account for the expendi-
ture of about 100000
The Coney Island Jockey Club, with its
ideal course and unsurpassed location, and
backed by such men as William K. Van
derbilt, John G.. Hecksher and the Alex
andre brothers, has $4,000 at stake close
to the seashore. The club has declared
colossal dividends, and is credited with
having accumulated reserve fund as large
as its capital, so that if racing were de-
clared illegal tomorrow the stockholders
would receive back the amount invested,
to say nothing Of the dividends and the
proceeds Of the sale of the property.
Perhaps the best investment is that
made by the owners of the Brooklyn
Jockey Club track. They include the
Dryer brothers and such powerful poll
ticians as James Sheylin, Alderman Nc
Carly and John Delmar, all of Brooklyn.
They purchased the old Parkville trot-
ting course, and comparatively nominal
expenditure prepared it for present pur-
poses. 1t is worth not less than Sl50,000,
and pays interest on an infinitely heavier
figure.
When Jerome Park is added to the list
1t becomes evident that not less than two
millions of dollars are invested in race
tracks within easy reaching distance of the
metropolis. No effort has been made to
be exact about the figures, the object be-
ing to get simply at general idea of what
1t costs to furnish facilities for the display
of speed.
a rough estimate of the number of men
who enter race horses on Eastern tracks
places il at Fifty. 1t is not easy to strike
a satisfactory average of the numerical
strength of the stables in the matter of
horses, bat fifteen would probably be not
far out of the way. Taking $1,000 as the
average worth of the horses, the aggregate
value of the flyers becomes a plain prob
lem in arithmetic. A million and a half
of dollars is the result of the calculation.
II would be scarcely interesting to 60 into
the details necessary to show in how many
different ways the pocket of the owner Of a
stable drained after he has purchased his
animals, but they would swell the three
and half millions to FIVE, and probably
leave very handsome margin above it.
Not many Western horses are run on
Eastern tracks, and the reasons are mani
fest. 1t pays to bring on only the best.
The expense of transporting and finding