130 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Another thing — until the last year or two we did not pay anywhere near 

 enough in purses to enable the horse owners to pay expenses. That drove 

 a lot of them out of the business. We always paid a fixed amount for 

 music, baseball, vaudeville, etc., but when it came to the races, offered 

 purses and charged 5% of the purse offered for each horse to enter, and 

 then deducted 5% from each of the first four horses, so that the race 

 never cost us more than half of what we advertised, and sometimes not 

 even that. I recall one race at our state fair a few years ago where a 

 purse of $3,000 was advert.sed. After it was over, it turned out that the 

 state fair had paid only $90 of this, while the horsemen paid in entrances 

 and deductions $2,910. No wonder they are quitting. 



The last year or two, of course, we have been offering our purses on the 

 "added money" plan. This, while it is a lot better, is not yet sufficiently 

 high to keep the horseman even w.th the game. As a sample — at the 

 county fair this year of which I am secretary, we had seven races and 

 added $250 to each race. It cost us $1,750 for the seven races. We had 

 30 horses there, and if the $1,750 had been divided equally between them, 

 each horse would have received $58.33. Now,' how far do you think that 

 would go in these days of high prices? Each horse has a driver and a 

 groom, and the owner is generally along. Then the horse has to be 

 shipped and fed each week, and the two or three men that are along have 

 to eat and pay railroad fare and draw some salary, so that $58.33 would 

 not more than half pay the bills. Take a vaudev.lle act with two people 

 in it, and you have to pay about $250 for it. That is $125 each. While 

 the race horse with two or three people along and high freight charges 

 and expenses to pay, does not get half as much as one vaudeville per- 

 former. 



This is another reason why horses are scarce. I am free to say that I 

 am fearful for the future of harness racing at fairs. Of course, if we pay 

 enough we can get the horses. Money will attract, but it looks to me 

 that unless we add from $500 to $1,000 for each race, it will be hard to 

 attract very many horses. If there were a few locally owned horses, they 

 might race for less, but usually they do not attract the crowd, as the 

 crowd wants to see outside horses. 



Think this over when you go home. Then take out your books and 

 figure out how much you have paid out for racing, how many horses you 

 had at the meeting, and you will be surprised at the small amount each 

 horse averaged. It does not change things to find that some one horse 

 won several hundred dollars. It is the average that counts, and the ones 

 that won little or nothing are just as expensive to race as the winners. 

 The only difference is that the owners run out of money^ quicker and have 

 to ship home, thus causing a still greater shortage of horses as the season 

 progresses. 



I don't like to be pessimistic on anything, but for the life of me I can- 

 not see how we are going to continue to have harness races without paying 

 a lot more money than at present. And if this is done and the shortage 

 continues, the larger fairs that can afford to pay the most, will get the 



