FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART III 215 



hard to fill an early closing stake, for we have to ship that horse 

 off by itself, but I think most of the stakes close too early. 



Mr. Allen: What do yon know about the early closing event, 

 Mr. ? I was going to ask a while ago in refer- 

 ence to the attendance, whether from the horseman's standpoint 

 they prefer to have fewer classes with larger purses. 



Mr. McLaughlin : That depends entirely upon the size of the 

 man's stable. The man that has a good many horses would 

 rather have a larger number of events and smaller purses. But 

 instead of more classes I would say more purses. 



Mr. Pickard: Mr. Clark was complaining of the man who 

 would make an entry and then would not come to fill it. There 

 are always two sides to this (juestion. A man may enter there and 

 in the course of a week receive word that the class did not fill. 

 He is out a week of time and no place to go. And so the horse- 

 man has his grievance as well as the secretary. 



Chairman: Now gentlemen you. will notice on the program dif- 

 ferent subjects for general discussion. If any one has anything 

 to bring up this is the time. Free attractions, special premiums, 

 admission fees, season tickets, exhibits, industrial, agricultural, 

 individual, township, school, concessions, pay show, night pro- 

 gram, advertising methods, and races and entry fees. 



Mr. Mitchell : Mr. Chairman — There is one or two things that 

 I would like to find out. I would like to know what you think 

 about automobile races. 



Mr. "White : I was going to say in regard to our experience in 

 automobile racing, if yon want to put on an automobile race you 

 have got to do it after the other races are over, because if you 

 have automobile racing the track is about done up for a week. 



Mr. McLaughlin: I don't think that there is any track outside 

 of Des Moines that is safe for automobile races. You have parks 

 you can go to, and you are liable to damage suits at any time 

 resulting from these automobile races. 



Mr. Mitchell: I will give you my experience. Last year we 

 decided to have one day an exclusively horseless day. That was 

 all the attractions we had. We gave an automobile away — ^it 

 was not a Ford, either. All the attractions we had were automo- 

 bile races and two mule races. And we had two thousand more 

 people attend than on any other day. We didn't know exactly 

 whether the attraction was the mules or the automobiles. 



