Los Angeles herald., 1906-04-15
WINTER RACE
MEETINGS END
TURF WAR AT NEW ORLEANS
DIES NATURAL DEATH
Memphis Opens Tomorrow Twenty
One Days of Racing and First of
New York Tracks Inau.
gurates Spring Meet

The last of the winter race meet
ings ended yesterday when the Fair
Grounds track at New Orleans closed
It's gates until Thanksgiving day and
incidentally terminated one of the most
bitter, unreenting, harmful and I'M
justified turf wars ever fought out at
the Crescent city.
The Memphis meeting begins tomor-
row and continues until May and it
may be extended if the horsemen so
desire. Nashville will continue it's
spring meeting until next Saturday,
when it will close until fall
Latonia will not open until Decora-
tion day, hut Louisville will begin a.
spring meeting May 3 and continue
twenty-six days. The I.atonia meet
ing will run until July A.
Bennings closed yesterday and tomor-
row Pimlico in Maryland will begin a
ten days meeting and Aqueduct track
Will inaugurate the first of the spring
meets around New York. Racing will
continue in the east until December 1.
With racing outlawed in Missouri,
Illinois and until recently in Tennes-
see, the prospect of racing in the mid
die west after July is anything but
glittering.
Racing was put under the ban in
Missouri because ii became so rotten
and boldly dishonest that the country
people arose and elected legislators on
the promise to wipe the license for the
game off the statute books and they
kept the promise
Ed Corrigan and John Condor re-
neWed animosities of personal ma
ture that had smouldered since their
great fight years ago and the net re-
suit was that politics were called into
the fight and the game in Illinois was
put on the bum.
The racing game in the middle west
has been run on anything but anna
teurish plans insofar as the business
end is concerned, but was allowed to
drift into hands of men who preferred
temporary to permanent gain.
Tennessee Resumes
Tennessee suffered "A suspension of
the racing business for a time, but the
supreme court declared void the legis-
lative act which prohibited pool-sell-
ing and the sport of kings has been
resuscitated in that state, but the les
son was not without good effect and
the game will doubtless be cleaner than
ever before.
Louisiana citizens have become dis
gusted with the tactics pursued by the
warning factions and it is threatened
by legislators and citizens who are OPP
posed to the game that the next leg
islature will make tramps out of those
dependent on racing for living ex-
penses.
Jeff Davis, governor of Arkansas, is
the dictator of racing in that state
and several months ago he became en-
ragged because the Western Jockey club
steward penalized his friend, Capt. r.
r. Rice, and he threatened to shut up
the game in that state unless the pen
atty was removed.
1t was removed, but the game is
yet in a shaky condition and the prob
abilities favor the closing down Of
racing plants in Arkansas after the
present season
Kentucky has begun legislating
against the racing game and the first
step is the act which places racing un-
der the control of a board of three
members who are the legalized czars
of the turf in the land of fast horses,
good whisky and beautiful women.
Down east is the only refuge of
horsemen in summer and the coast is
the Mecca in winter. 1t is safe to pre-
dict that if the warning factions in the
game do not cease to war and devote
more energy to building up the game
rather than to killing it there will be
few derby winners between the Alle-
gheny and Rocky mountains in many
years to come.