Los Angeles herald., 1906-04-14
GRAND CIRCUIT
DEMORALIZED
DETROIT AND CLEVELAND MEETS
IN DOUBT
Buffalo Meeting Only Is Assured, but
Prospects Are Frightening for
Other Cities-Horsemen
Anxious

1t is counted as among the probabili-
Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, will be
shattered this year and the blue rib
bon harness meets of America will be
greatly interfered with.
Only one of the meetings is abso-
lutely assured, that at Buffalo being in
a healthy state of prosperity and har-
mony with the world at large. The
Detroit and Cleveland meetings are yet
to be arranged, but prospects favor en-
tertainment of the immortal hope which
lives as long as life.
The trouble at Detroit is not so
acute as that at Cleveland. but until
it is definitely adjusted there will be
no grand circuit meeting this or any
other year in the city by the lake.
The Crosse Pointe track was believed
to have reverted to the control of D.
j. Campau, who is the foremost figure
in promoting the Detroit meeting, but
it now transpires that such is far from
being true.
Campau is straining every nerve to
the accomplishment of this one pur-
pose, but it begins to appear as if the
efforts were doomed to failure and, in
cidentally, the annual July meeting in
the City of the Straits was likewise
doomed.
The Detroit meeting has always been
regarded as the greatest and best of
any on the grand circuit and it has
been literally patronized and supported
by horsemen and the public.
OF all grand circuit meetings none
could be so lily spared as the Detroit
meeting and the possibility that it may
not be held is the occasion for increas-
n
looking forward to the meeting with
the keenest anticipation and pleasure.
The $4,000 Merchants and Manufac..
turers' stake for 2:24 class trotterS and
the $4,000 Chamber of Commerce stake
for 2:24 class PAGERS are in the same
class among the harness horsemen as
the American derby, Grand Republic
and Metropolitan handicaps are to the
| running races.
Prospects Brighten
The troubles which assail the Cleve-
land Driving Park company, under
whose auspices the grand circuit meet
| ings in the Forest City are held are
many.
Politics and adverse legislation have
| dealt it the seVerest blows and only the
| boiling sportsman's blood will be re-
| sponsible for the annual meeting this
| season.
The Pollock bill, legalizing pool sell
| ing and racing in Ohio, was allowed to
| die a natural death a few weeks ago
and the harness sport was dealt dy-
ing blow thereby.
| To conduct harness meeting on the
grand circuit is an undertaking in
volving considerable money and
through the aid of the Pollock bill it
was hoped by horsemen that financial
| daylight might be discerned sufficient
to justify holding the annual meeting.
However, the position taken by the
driving park company gives hope that
the adverse legislation will not inter-
fere with the annual meeting. The
stockholders assert that they will hold
the meeting and put up the thousands
| of dollars necessary to make it a sue
cess.
Public spirited citizens of Cleveland
have undertaken the task of Tightening
the financial burden of the stockhold-
ers and a public fund has been started
and swelled to proportions which
| threaten to reduce the inevitable loss
of the meeting to an insignificant sum
Under these conditions the prospects
are daily growing brighter for the
Cleveland meeting and IL the rays OF
hope could only be induced to shine
through the gloom around Detroit
harness horsemen throughout the coun.
try would take fresh courage and re.
new the pleasant anticipatons for E
great season on the grand circuit dur.
ing 1906