NO HORSE RACING IN AMERICA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 30, 29 July 1911, Page 10 (Supplement)

NO HORSE RACING IN AMERICA

SQUELCHED BY THE ANTI-BETTING LAWS. Horse-racing as a sport in the United States is practically a thing of the past State after State, following the example of New York, has enacted rigorous anti-betting laws. The sport, which seems able to exist only where- betting is permitted, has been driven from one ditch to another, until to-day it is practically outlawed the country over. In Utah there is some racing, with the Paris mutual system of betting; Kentucky permits the sport, with rigorous restrictions, however, and in about two other states there are occasional meetings. Otherwise, the "sport of kings" is unknown in the United States to-day. Across the borders—both north and south—there are meetings, attended chiefly by Americans. One of these is held in British Columbia. Jaurez, in Mexico, a town that recently gained fame as the site of the deciding battle of the Mexican revolution, has a long racing season at which American horses compete. That the "reform" has dealt a blow to horse-breeding in the United States i 9 strongly maintained by those who are qualified to judge. In California, stud farms that formerly maintained 300 to 400 stallions, now have 30 or 40. It is said that if the United States should become involved in a war in which the cavalry would play an important part, the lack of gopd horseflesh would be very apparent. The best cavalry horses are admitterly those in which there is some thoroughbred blood.

Notwithstanding the serious falling off in the number of thoroughbred horses bred, the destruction of horse racing seems to be "satisfactory to the body of the. people. The New York Tribune says on the subject:—"The public have turned to other interests, and the great gambling machine of other days is now merely a wreck and an evil memory. Yet only 10 or 20 years ago this city was the centre of a circle of race tracks, on which public gambling was conducted without cessation from May to November.) Now the community seem entirely reconciled to the conversion of those once-crowded arenas of feverish speculation into truck gardens, building plots, or graveyards."