JOYNTON SMITH OFFERS TO BUY UP RACECOURSE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 494, 25 October 1928, Page 15

JOYNTON SMITH OFFERS TO BUY UP RACECOURSE

(From Yesterday's late Edition;

TO POPULARISE SPORT PLAN ASTOUNDS ENGLAND (United PA-—By Telegraph—CopyrightJ (Australian- end N.Z. Press Association) LONDON, Tuesday. Sir Joyrtton Smith visited Newmarket racecourse at the invitation of the “Daily Express” today, and made a remarkable offer to lease Newmarket or Epsom for £20,000 a year for 10 years on condition that he is allowed 15 racing days annually. The offer was made a front-page story in the “Daily Express.” Sir Joyntou Smith says that he will bear the losses or pay half the profits to charity. It is necessary, he say, to popularise racing, and the prizemoney will be increased. He describes Newmarket as the “cemetery of gaiety,” the grandstand like the top of a woolshed, the crowd small, sullen and without a single laugh or smile. “The whole thing is a funeral: bandless, flowerless and colourless,” he says, "and the bookmakers are like bankrupt moneylenders at an open-air convention.” If the Jockey Club accepts his offer he guarantees to popularise racing on Australian lines. He will tear up the dismal stone pavings at Newmarket, and substitute gardens, shrubs and fountains, and place bookmakers beneath. brilliantly-coloured sunshades. He will employ a first-class military band, open better restaurants and a buffet and create a spirit of carnival. If the bookmakers who are the present owners of the course boycott him, he will return blow for blow and import his own bookmakers, and instal a totalisator as soon as it is made legal. “I have met competition before in Australia,” he said. "I opened a course free, and operated coaches to it free, to beat my opponents. I have ‘the necessary’ to carry out my offer.” The “Daily Express” in its first editorial says: "Doubtless potentates will smile at the offer, but they will do well to ponder on it. Sir Joynton Smith’s idea is right.”