No More Pansies

California's glamorous Santa Anita race meeting, richest in the world ($1,160,000 in purses), is definitely called off for 1942. Stranded, at least for the winter, are some 1,200 thoroughbreds and their trainers, already quartered at the track when U.S. Army officials decided they would draw too big a crowd.

For some owners, like Whirlaway's rich Warren Wright, it will mean a considerable loss in racing income (Whirly was favored to win the $100,000 Santa Anita Handicap). But for the hundreds of hand-to-mouth horsemen, who can ill afford the $5 a day necessary to support each of their unemployed dependents, Santa Anita's closing was a shattering blow.

Some quickly offered their pets to the U.S. Remount Service. Others, willing to take a chance and lucky enough to get stall space, had their horses vanned to Mexico's Agua Caliente, 150 miles away, where racing is permitted on Sundays only. But many itinerant horsemen will be compelled to apply to the California Turf Foundation for financial aid in order to pasture their horses until the opening of the East's spring season.

Others affected by Santa Anita's fadeout: the State Treasury, which will lose nearly $2,000,000 in taxes (mostly from pari-mutuel handle); the track's restaurant concessionaire, who last week removed $80,000 worth of liquor, canned goods and other provisions, 4,300 track employes, including pari-mutuel clerks, veterinarians, Pinkertons, parking attendants, waiters and the bugler who toots the horses to the post.

Santa Anita may not remain idle. Possible use: a Government flying field (because of its 185 acres of paved parking lot). To prepare it for its wartime role, Santa Anita's owners mournfully made plans last week to plow under $50,000 worth of freshly planted pansies.

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