TURF NEWS AND NOTES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 April 1941, Page 3

TURF NEWS AND NOTES

CURRENT TOPICS FROM STABLE AND COURSE Racing Boom in America

(BY

“THE GRAFTER.”)

The war has had most serious effects on horse-racing and breeding in England, where all fixtures for this year have been cancelled and many world-famous studs dispersed. In contrast, the sport is enjoying an unprecedented boom in the United States of America. Totalisator betting is now legal in 25 of the 48 States in the Union and the stimulus this has given to the sport is reflected in the ambitious programmes of the chief tracks of the country.

Typical of this prosperity is the plan for the summer season at the two principal courses in Chicago. Arlington Park and Washington Park, where stakes valued at about £237,000 will be offered in July and August. Each of the five racecourses in Chicago stages meetings of between 30 and 40 consecutive days of racing. It is this centralisation of the sport and the concentration of a month of racing on one course, made possible by the laying down of dirt tracks, that enables American executives to offer such big inducements to owners. In the opinion of many people in England, a considerable degree of centralisation will have to be adopted in England if racing is to flourish in the post-war years.

The first season of pari-mutuel betting on racecourses in the State of New York showed the remarkable turnover of nearly £20,000,000 at current

rates of English exchange. Five courses raced on 174 days and the total attendance for the season was 2,038,000. The State and the tracks shared equally in the 10 per cent totalisator taxation, which was worth more than two and a-half million sterling to each.

RACING FIXTURES

April 14 —Auckland. April 14 —Feilding. April 14 —Wairarapa. April 14, 15 —Riverton. April 14 —Waipukurau. April 14 —Kumara. 'April 14 —Beaumont. April 14, 15—Canterbury. April 19, 21 —Avondale. April 19, 21—Greymouth. April 20—Waverley. April 26 —South Canterbury. April 20 —Reefton.