Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1889-11-02
LEONARD w. JEROME'S POSITION.
His Reform Of Racing and subsequens
Fortunes and MisfOrtunes.
fSpecIal COrreSpop,ience

Ills Reform oS Racing and SubseQuene
Fortunes and Siisfortunes.
Especial Correspondence
New YORK, Oct. 31.--Leonard w.
Jerome has recently resigned the presi.
dency OF the New York Jockey club
the new racing organization, which is
said to have the finest course in the
world-and was reelected president Of
the Coney Island Jockey club. And
thereby hangs a tale.
Leonard jerome, brother of the late
Larry Jerome-the greatest wit and
practical joker this country has ever
produced--and father of Lady Randolph
Churchill, can fairly be termed the
father Of the American turf. While, OF
course, 1t cannot be claimed for him
that he is the first man to have started
running racing in America, yet it can
be justly asserted that when this great
est Of sports had lost its popularity
through the chicanery which had de-
bauched it, it was he who, unaided,
lifted it again to the plane of its former
respectabiity.
For period Of thirty years prior to
the close of the civil war the turf was ta-
booed by decent people. 1t was the GUS
tom in those times to run races in heats,
and it was not unusual for those who
found that they had bet the wrong way
to purchase the winner of the first heat
before he made his second trial.
For thirty years gentlemen sternly set
their face against racing. Two attempts
were made in New York to revive this
sport as the pastime for respectable peo-
pie, but the recollections of the past
were too vivid, and two failures were the
only results. 1t was while this dark
cloud lowered over the turf that Leonard
w. jerome, then a man of immense
wealth, and with the keen sporting pro-
clivity OF true gentleman, determined
upon q resurrection. There was no one
to give him a helping hand, and so un-
aided on the 2lst of September, 1864, at
a personal expenditure Of more than
$5OO,0 he inaugurated the now famous
Jerome Park track.
His determination was to make 1t re-
sort for ladies as well as gentlemen, to
give it club house surrounded with all
the social rigidness Of the most exclusive
organization, and to make even the sus-
picion of fraud in the racing OF horses
not only 80 odious but so severely pun
ishable as to remove all possibility OF
the slightest attempt at chicanery. 1t is
needless now to narrate the successful
result Of that experiment. Doubling
friends focked around the master mind,
calculating only, "We did not know you
were going to do it this way" Fashion
smiled upon the project. Money rolled
into the new associations Golfers. Racing
was again made the foremost sport of
America
The story Of its subsequent strides--a
tale the narration Of which is only made
possible by Mr. Jeromc's efforts-is told
in New York having tracks at Mon
mouth park. at Coney Island, at West
chester. at jerome park, at Brooklyn, at
Elizabeth, at Linden, at Clifton and at
Brighton beach, all within easy travel
ing distance of the metropolis; story
emphasized by successful courses at
Saratoga, at Pimlico, at Ivy City. at La
tonia, at st. Louis. at Chicago, at Lex
ington, at New Orleans and Minneapolis;
Q story that tells Of millions OF dollars 10.