| Westchester Racing Association (Belmont Park) | $1,500,000 |
| Queens County Jockey Club (Aqueduct) | 700,000 |
| Metropolitan jockey Club (Jamaica) | 550,000 |
| Coney Island Jockey Club (Sheepshead Bay) | 525,000 |
| Brooklyn Jockey Club (Gravesend) | 500,000 |
| Brighton Beach Racing Association | 300,000 |
| Buffalo Racing Association | 200,000 |
| Saratoga Association for the Improvement of the Breed of Horses | 50,000 |
| Total | $4,325,000 |
These figures were obtained from the Secretary of State, the Hon. John F. O’Brien. In any calculations that may be made the capitalization of Belmont Park should be eliminated and the rental of Morris Park, $45,000, substituted for $1,500,000, in order to show how thriving a concern the Racing Trust is. It will be understood, of course, that the capitalization of these concerns may be a trifle, just a trifle, higher than the actual value of the said tracks and appurtenances, except in the case of the Saratoga track, which was built solely “for the improvement of the breed of horses.”
For the right to do business on these tracks the Racing Trust pays, or is supposed to pay, to the state five per cent. upon the gross earnings of said tracks. Among the duties of the Racing Commission is the supervision of these receipts. The commission consists of Messrs. August Belmont, John Sanford and E. D. Morgan. Mr. Belmont is the president of the Westchester Racing Association (Belmont Park), and the largest owner of stock in the Racing Trust. Mr. Sanford is the power at Saratoga, and does not race until the season opens at the Spa. Attached to the Racing Commission is a State Inspector of Races. Until he was appointed to a position in the Internal Revenue Department the place was filled by Charles W. Anderson, a colored man. Reports of gross receipts are made to the State Comptroller by the racing associations and by the State Inspector of Races. It is not impossible that the latter official takes such figures as are offered to him, and it is difficult to imagine that he ever objected to them on the score of inaccuracy or any other score.
The reports of gross receipts made by the members of the Racing Trust to the State Comptroller for the years 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903 and 1904 are as follows (the figures were obtained from the State Comptroller, the Hon. Otto Kelsey):
| 1900. | 1901. | 1902. | 1903. | 1904. | |
| Coney Island Jockey Club | $494,895.06 | $640,327.97 | $820,184.18 | $903,128.84 | $854,421.20 |
| Brooklyn Jockey Club | 474,887.88 | 593,472.72 | 761,394.65 | 790,054.07 | 731,559.26 |
| Brighton Beach | 307,311.30 | 407,611.75 | 502,940.25 | 559,348.00 | 626,837.10 |
| Westchester | 323,041.23 | 432,187.86 | 571,178.79 | 623,131.27 | 566,143.62 |
| Saratoga | 137,248.21 | 272,612.24 | 359,342.40 | 439,649.49 | 393,550.09 |
| Metropolitan | 355,270.70 | 307,396.03 | |||
| Queens | 164,555.14 | 225,417.69 | 324,177.82 | 282,900.88 | 218,729.16 |
| Buffalo | 62,519.80 | 60,857.63 | 106,489.05 | ||
| Totals | $1,901,938.82 | $2,571,630.23 | $3,401,737.89 | $4,014,340.88 | $3,805,125.51 |
The reader will notice the exactness with which the racing associations make up their gross receipts—the “twenty cents” of the Coney Island Jockey Club, the “nine cents” of the Saratoga “Association for the Improvement of the Breed of Horses,” and so on. The reader will notice, also, that the gross receipts for last year were $209,215.37 less than those of 1903, though the press was unanimous in declaring that last year’s racing was the greatest, which means the most profitable of all years. The five per cent. paid to the state last year by the Racing Trust amounted to $190,256.27. This five per cent. is “the penny in the dollar” alluded to by Mr. Edward Lauterbach in his address to the constitutional convention. But ridiculously small as it is, why does the Racing Trust give it to the state? Simply as a sop to the rural legislator and his constituents. The dweller in cities may lack some or many of the virtues, but when it is necessary to find the highest plane of parsimonious hypocrisy one must needs pay a visit to the rural districts. This five per cent., which smacks so much of Iscariot’s thirty pieces of silver, is divided among such agricultural societies as give annual fairs, and to farmers’ institutes. Ostensibly it is intended for the improvement of agriculture; in reality much of it is given as purses for trotting races at the said county fairs. Without the support of the rural element the Racing Trust would not have succeeded in getting the adoption of the Percy-Gray racing law.
The profits of the Racing Trust are enormous. Take the Coney Island Jockey Club, for instance. Mr. Leonard Jerome, who was a sportsman who never made money out of sport, built the Sheepshead Bay track at a cost of $125,000. The grounds of the Coney Island Jockey Club belong to the people and were filched from them by an act of the Legislature. Improvements were made since the track was built, but the actual legal belongings of the Coney Island Jockey Club are worth far less than the amount of the capital stock, which is $525,000. The gross receipts of the club for last year, as reported to the State Comptroller, were $854,421.20. Of what did these consist? It was said that the attendance on “big days” last year numbered from 40,000 to 50,000. Put it at 35,000, and the money taken in for admission, boxes and clubhouse seats and boxes and for “field” admissions would amount to about $80,000. Then there are the bookmakers. On more than one day last year there were 120 members of the Metropolitan Turf Association in the ring. They paid $57 each for the privilege of “laying the odds.” Back of them were a hundred layers who paid $37 each. There were fifty others who paid $27, and as many more who paid $17 each. Programs to the number of 40,000 at ten cents each make $400. Then there are the bar and restaurant privileges, the commissioners and many other means of income, so that the income of one such day could not be less than $100,000.
There were thirty days of racing at Sheepshead Bay last year. The attendance, according to the daily press, was “enormous,” “record-breaking,” “large” or “highly satisfactory.” The “highly satisfactory” days were the smallest of the season, which shows the difference between English as it is understood by “sporting” writers in the daily press and those who are able to distinguish the difference between fact and fancy. If the average daily attendance were not more than 12,500, it and the other sources of revenue would mean about $35,000 per day.
| Thirty days’ racing at $35,000 per day | $1,050,000 |
| Expenses of all kinds at $10,000 per day | 300,000 |
| Balance in favor of the club | $750,000 |