Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-01-14
RACE MAGNATES
WILL MEET TODAY
Upon the Action of the Jockey
Club at the Present Session
Will Depend the Future
of the Sport.

NEW YORK, January 14.-The Jockey
Club, which holds its annual meeting to-
day, is heartened by recent decisions OF
the courts interpreting the Agnew7 Hart
law. There could be no mistaking yes
terday the spirit of optimism that pre-
vailed.
The Westminster Racing Association,
which is the Belmont Park organization,
proposes to go right ahead and has al
ready scheduled it's twenty-fve-thou-
sand-dollar Belmont, its Withers
and Matron, it's Nursery and
Ladies', it's Whitney memorial, its Inter
national, Champion and Harbor Hill. 1t
will race on the magnificent course at
Queens, and its meeting. while possibly
not of the duration of other years, will,
in all essentials, be as brilliant.
The Coney Island Jockey Club at
Sheepshead Bay. it was said last night.
would follow suit, racing off every OBJ
legation, and In the Brooklyn Jockey
Club rooms yesterday Philip j. Dwyer
said the old Gravesend course would be
open as usual to horsemen and patrons.
Aqueduct Also
This latter meant that Aqueduct would
also hold it's meeting, for Mr.. Dwyer
is the presiding genius of the Queens
county course, and there can be no doubt
that the sportsmen who now control Sara
toga will also hold a meeting. Saratoga
and Belmont Park have some reserve in
their treasures, and that will aid them.
There have been four decisions of con-
sequence, and now only the verdict of the
court of appeals, in their judgment, stands
between it and the continuance of the
sport-possibly not in the great, wide
latitude that formerly obtained but still
sufficient for it's perpetuation and eX-
tensive patronage.
The racing of thoroughbreds is not
dead. The AgneWHart law conceded its
legality. What 1t sought to affect was the
registration or the recording of wagers
When the bill first was introduced it read
that when upon any track or course
authorized by or entitled to the benefits of
this act (the Percy-Gray law there should
be any bet made or registered il should
be a misdemeanor." Before the bill got
through the committee stages the words
made" or or were stricken out and
all that remained was the registering
Senator Agnew conceded this, and so
did Assemblyman Hart. But the district
attorneys within whose jurisdiction race
tracks were situated did not, and hence
it came that all last season the making of
a wager, apart from its registration. was
interpreted and treated by them as GRIM
inal Offense.
The Collins Case.
The first case tried under the interpre-
tation of the district attorneys was that
of Melville Collins, who, concededly, had
made a wager. On a writ Of habeas cor
pus he was released by Justice Bischoff,
who pointed out that even under the Ag
new-Hart bill it was not an offense against
either statute or common law to make "a
wager. but who added as On Obiter die
tum that 1t could not be construed as an
offense if he had personally made memo
randum of the transaction, so long as
that memorandum was not exchanged as
an evidence or acknowledgment of the bet
Two cases subsequently tried were COM
elements of this. The first was that of
George Sterling, who wagered a set of
golf balls with lisa Hahn and made a
of the same, and which was
dismissed by Justice Gaynor. though the
justice somewhat intimated that the fire.
quency of WagerS might possibly desig-
nate a man as bookmaker and hence
come within the constitutional inhibition.
Then came the cases Of Lichtenstein and
Jones, and in these cases frequency and
Offering Of odds were admitted, but the
contention that frequency did not neces-
sarily mean occupation, nor did the vary
ing odds they might quote to one man as
against the odds quoted to another mean
they were bOOkmakers within the accept
ed and photographed meaning of the
word. In both instances Mr.. Justice Mad
dox ruled for the defendants, who were
the REALTORS in his court, he laying it
down, and following the English decisions
first that the bookmaker must occupy
designated place, and next. that there
must be an actual and physical registra-
ton Of the wager.
Racing Information Legal.
Two other cases referred exclusively to
the ordinary routine of the making and