Al Hippodromo

Unrocked by revolution the northwest corner of Mexico celebrated the Sabbath and St. Patrick's Day with horseracing. The animals raced from mid-morning until after sundown at varying distances for assorted purses and Golden Prince, could he talk, might have told reporters he was the happiest horse in the world. Golden Prince earned $110,000, the largest annual turf stake in the world, by winning the tenth running of the Coffroth Handicap at Tiajuana (Aunt Jane). Mexico. Golden Prince is a sleepy-looking Kentucky chestnut, a five-year-old gelding from the stables of the Sunshot Stock Farm owned by one Abe Bartelstein. He has won seven out of eight starts this season. Last week, with Jockey Jack Parmelee up, he won by a neck over Naishapur, and equalled the course record. Genie, son of famed Man o' War, was the favorite. He finished sixteenth.

Tiajuana dozes in dusty sunshine a couple of rifle shots across the U. S. border. The track, where each spring more than $98,250 is posted for one horserace, is so near California that tourists park Fords and Cadillacs on the U. S. side to avoid the nuisance of search (for liquor) when race day is done. A signpost says AL HIPPODROMO and a long bar under the grandstand dispenses beer and spirits. Otherwise the racetrack and its patrons are markedly Americano.

The Coffroth Handicap climaxes 100 days of racing, attracting horses from famed Eastern and Southern stables, but odd things happen to horses, and many prime jockies do not ride there. Touts peddling tips are numerous and all offer the gambling tourist a sure thing on every race. Yet even touts in their surpassing wisdom disappear mysteriously toward the paddock between races to find "which ones are trying."

The Coffroth yields profits to make jockeys try. Many owners give 10% of the purse to a victorious rider. To this Mr. Coffroth adds $5,000. To the winner's trainer goes $5,000 from the Coffroth coffers. James Wood Coffroth. once a boxing promoter, operates Al Hippodromo. He knows how rich purses (paid in U. S. dollars) whip up the sporting appetite.

The same dollars--round, hard and heavy--are the chief currency of Tiajuana.

They go clanking across the bar of the gambling table and drag at the tourist's pocket. One silver dollar purchases two cocktails; two whiskies; two tots of rum. Beer is 10 or 15 cents per glass, depending on the glitter of the dispensary.

Behind the bars of Tiajuana stand the remnants of a disappearing race--the U.S. bartender. Many a man among them will tell heart-breaking tales of better days when he served drinks at the Waldorf in Manhattan, at Boston's Parker House or at Coffee Dan's in San Francisco. Their skill confirms their stories and strong men weep gently into their old-fashioned whiskey cocktails to think such souls are passing.

These bartenders comprise the ranking industry. For Tiajuana, exotic as it may sound to the dry and fevered U.S. fancy, is nothing but a couple of dirty streets of barrooms. It is almost epic in its drabness. One bar stretches an entire block and announces itself as "The Longest Bar in the World."* Some have mechanical music; some musicians. Most places have small clearings for dancing. All smell.

At one end of the short, principal street is a building labeled The Foreign Club, a title which means nothing. Inside are crowded tables, covered with green cloths. On these tables anxious tourists play roulette, blackjack, poker, craps.

At 5 :30, or whenever the races are over, the play is wildest. Losers are trying desperately to win it all back. Winners are giving their luck a ride. There are only a few minutes left. For Tiajuana has practically no hotel accommodations and the U.S. border closes at 6 P.M.

It is generally believed that the U.S. Government closed the border as an aftermath of the Peteet "Shame Deaths" some three years back. One Thomas Peteet. U.S. citizen, and his wife and two daughters were on holiday. Drugged wine was served the girls in a bar; they were kidnaped, haled to a vice den and repeatedly assaulted. Thomas Peteet, miserably ashamed, turned on the gas in a San Diego hotel and killed his whole family. Four Mexicans were tried for the crime, and acquitted.

This winter ingenious promoters devised a way to keep some of the U.S. gold in town for the evening. They withdrew two miles from Tiajuana to a spot called Agua Caliente. Here they built a beautiful hotel and beside it a large and luxurious gambling casino. While the rabble is fleeing for the border from Tiajuana, the lazy rich man is beginning to dress for dinner at Agua Caliente.

* As many as 60 bars, some as long as the Tiajuana bar, are erected each year for temporary use at Aintree, England, scene of the Grand National Steeplechase (TIME, March 18). Other bars which claimed to be the longest in the world were: the Atlantic Bar of Butte, Mont., where 24 bartenders catered to the miners: and the L-shaped Fritz & Russell bar of Portland, Ore. Seeking elite patronage, Fritz --& Russell used to advertise: "See the largest bar in the world, lined with the working giants of the woods, taking their glasses of beer and telling tales of the forest. See the jolly tar, fresh from his ship, spinning tales of the deep blue sea." These sights van'she 1 when Oregon went dry in 1915.