Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

A History Lesson....

Editor's Note: For those harness racing buffs who thought they may have read everything, here are a few more neat tidbits of good reading material provided for Odds On Racing by Don Daniels of Michigan.

When St. Louis Was a Hotbed

This article from July 1949 Hoof Beats, although not focused primarily upon harnesss racing provides some unique insights.

FIFTY-FIVE years ago St. Louis got its first taste of night horse racing. And the fans ate it up. The racing sport really flourished in and around St. Louis until 1905 when Missouri's solons abolished it.

St. Louisians are again being offered night racing but they have to cross the Mississippi River into Illinois and travel a few miles to Collinsville where spacious Fairmount Park is entertaining the trotters and pacers over its modernly lit mile track.
A pair of Pennsylvania horsemen are largely responsible for the revival of nocturnal racing in the St. Louis area. Edwin C. Moon and Dan Parish, whose Moon and Parish Stable has been well known in the harness racing world for a number of years, decided to dispose of their stable of trotters and pacers and bring the standardbred sport back to St. Louis in a big way.
They secured a lease on Fairmont Park and incorporated. Now they are enjoying a very successful second season over the fast major sized oval.

Many things combined to lead to the downfall of horse racing in Missouri in 1905. But those things are practically forgotten, especially with the trotters and pacers performing nightly at Fairmount with horsemen and fans being given every possible opportunity to enjoy a clean sport.
Following are excerpts from an article in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat that was written by Justin L. Faherty:
"The Missouri Senate was in an uproar that March evening in 1905. Long days of debate and public hearing on the bill to repeal the breeders' law, under which horse racing operated in Missouri, were finished. The House had voted overwhelmingly to abolish racing and now the Senate was ready to vote.

"Horse racing the previous summer bad passed through the wildest season of a long history. The biggest race of the decade-the $50,000 World's Fair Handicap-had drawn a crowd of 50,000 to Fair Grounds; Union Track had opened with its infamous 'free gate'; the city had buzzed with talk all summer of fixed races and crooked managers.

"The nation was passing through a great era of reform, and state legislatures throughout the land were working on bills which, in the next few years, were to ban racing in every state except Maryland and Kentucky."
It took two roll calls to decide the issue. On the first one the opponents of racings were short by one vote but on the second one senator switched his previous stand and racing in Missouri was outlawed.

For 137 years there had been racing in Missouri as the sport built up to that crescendo of the summer of 1904. During the 44 years since that one senator changed his mind, there have been numerous attempts to legalize the sport. Some of those bills have passed the Legislature and been vetoed by the governor in office. Others have been voted down.

Racing came closest to returning to Missouri in 1935 when a bill to legalize horse and dog racing passed the Senate. But the governor, though a racing fan himself, vetoed it on technical grounds, explaining it was "carelessly drawn."
Just a few weeks ago three senators teamed to present a bill which would permit racing under the control of a commission and with pari-mutuel or totalizator betting.

Whether or not horse racing is brought back to Missouri and St. Louis in the near future-or ever-there are old-timers who vividly recall the days of racing at local (St. Louis) tracks.
First record of racing in St. Louis is the account of competition by Indian ponies in 1767. Prizes ran to $100 and better and the races were over relay-like courses of a mile to four miles. There is no actual account of betting, but those early settlers liked their gambling as well as their modem counterparts.

In 1848 an organization leased an 80-acre tract of land and ran a series of meetings which continued until the St. Louis Fair.
Racing in conjunction with the annual fairs was a big item in St. Louis Sports history until the Civil War. And after hostilities between the North and South ceased racing picked up where it left off.

The St. Louis jockey Club organized in 1877. It tried racing on a fine mile course at the Fair Grounds but couldn't make up its mind whether to stick to trotting or running races.

A strictly amateur, non-betting track-the Gentlemen's Driving Club--was set up in 1861 with a grandstand seating 800. There the elite of St. Louis showed off their fine trotters, pacers and show horses.

"In 1885, an era of big time racing, which was to push St. Louis to the front as a leading horse town, dawned with the organization of the St. Louis jockey Club which took over the Fair Grounds track and established quite a racing plant.
"The monstrous club house with its luxurious dining rooms and impeccable appointments, the grandstands, originally built for 6000 but later expanded to handle 15,000 and the excellent track made it a show place in racing as the years went by.
"Originally, Fair Grounds was set up to operate 13 days a year. But, 13 days weren't enough for the bookies. They agreed to put up the purses, if Fair Grounds would stay open. The fans wanted more too. So there were 30 days, then 40 and by, 1890 racing was a big thing in St. Louis.

"And, as such, it suffered. The fans and bookies wanted more than 40 days a year. Fair Grounds wouldn't give it to them. But others would. Small tracks started to bob up.

"Al Spink turned over publication of his Sporting News to his nephew; took over a tract of land and, with friends and relatives helping, built stands, stables, fences and enclosures for a half-mile track.
"Now there was racing 365 days a year.

"Enterprising Al Spink even installed lights in 1894 and offered night racing for the first time. This was a novelty which excited the nation and brought fans to his park in droves.

"The racing fever went all out of bounds-went far beyond the confines of the tracks themselves. Bookies didn't need to go to the tracks. They opened what became known as Pool Alley.

"This was too much for the Fair Grounds organization. Its president carried the fight to the State Legislature in 1895 and put over the breeders' law which restricted racing to 90 days a year for any track; limited the season period from May I to Nov. 1, and outlawed race betting except at legal tracks. Most of the smaller tracks and Pool Alley folded up.

"With horse racing again on a sane basis, a triumverate of St. Louis businessmen, who were to become powers of racing in later years in St. Louis--Louis A. Cella, Samuel Adler and C. A. "Capp" Hilles--joined forces and went into competition with Fair Grounds.

"They built an establishment known as Delmar Track which opened in 1901 with much fanfare. So, with two tracks operating there were 180 days-a full season of racing each summer.
Other tracks sprang up. Everybody seemed to want to get into the race track business. Competition became keen, with track dates overlapping.

"Rumblings of discontent with charges of crooked gambling were beard on all sides. Joseph W. Folk, Democratic candidate for governor, made the abolition of racing and gambling the major issue of his campaign. Less than a week after the final races, Folk was elected and four months later horse racing was made illegal in Missouri."
If racing again becomes legal in Missouri after these many years, much of the credit, no doubt, will be due to the operators of Fairmount Park, who are making quite a reputation for themselves by fairness to fans and horsemen alike.

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