Horse Tracks' New Look
Perhaps the most noticeable change in racetrack policy and plant design was the 'California influence.'
Since racing was renewed in California in 1933, after a long lapse, two of its southern tracks have generally led in attendance and betting - and in establishing an atmosphere of community respectability.
Hollywood park and Santa Anita were designed for the comfort and convenience of a large number of customers. Hollywood, especially, is a 'customer's track.'
After a fire in 1949, it was rebuilt to give the customers plenty of space to move around in, for racing crowds are always in motion.
Starting to the rail to the eating and drinking concessions, to the benches to study the form sheets, to the betting windows, back to the rail or seat.
The man who designed Hollywood was Arthur Froehlich, who had been a designer of shopping centers and knew how to build for moving crowds.
The results at Hollywood were so successful that Froehlich was pressed into service at Laurel, Maryland, Garden State, New Jersey, Woodbine, Canada, and Caracas, Venezuela.
The managers of Roosevelt Raceway (harness track) in New York has Froehlich rebuild their plant in 1957.
Moreover, the California influence came resoundingly to New York thoroughbred racing when the N.Y.R.A. Then engaged Mr. Froehlich to design its spacious and efficient new racing plant, Aqueduct, with a seating capacity of 80,000.
This track is breaking attendance and betting records in its first year, attesting to its efficiency in handling big-city crowds, although a customer at the 'Big A' can hear wistful talk about the design of the old charmers - tracks like Belmont, Saratoga, and Keeneland.
To many Americans, horse racing still symbolizes the spirit of high society, as it did in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.
Though as always, in contrast to Europeans, whose elite attend the races in striped trousers, cutaway coat, and top hat, American males would not be caught dead 'dressed' for the races.
The delight of racing a horse in their own colors has appeal to many businessmen. And they are pleased to see their names intermingled in the racing programs with old names - Whitney, Widener, Ryan, du Pont, Phipps, Headley, Bostwick, Field, Gerry, Jeffords, Vanderbilt, Morris, Haggin - names associated with racing for as many as three generations.
Thread of the very old racing tradition in the U.S. turned up when the Howell Jacksons of Virginia (and General Motors) won the one-mile classic '1,000 Guineas,' and the Epsom Oaks at a mile and a half, two of the most prized races in England, with their filly Never Too Late.
The horse was foaled at Claiborne Farm, Kentucky, and may be the best three-year-old filly in Europe.
The Jacksons' racing silks, maroon with a maroon cap were the oldest registered colors in the U.S. and came down from General William Harding who registered them with the Nashville Jockey Club in 1825.