RIOT ON RACECOURSE

Evening Star, Issue 21811, 29 August 1934, Page 14

RIOT ON RACECOURSE

FURY OF PARIS PUNTERS ■ WOMEN FLEE IN TERROR Scenes of the wildest disorder brake out at the famous Lougchamp race-, course in Paris on the afternoon of the clay before the running of the Grand Prix—France’s Derby. A,mob of punters, stung to fury because two horses, including the favourite, got left at the post, ran wild when the judges refused to allow- the race to be re-run. The crowd (says the correspondent of the ‘Sunday Graphic’) surged across the track, tore up railings, burned the grass, dug up the track, set. the totalizator on fire, flung tins of sardines in all directions, smashed the starting gates, and cut electric wires. The meeting, as fashionable an. event as Ascot, was resplendent with hosts of beautiful women. When the rioting broke out the faultlessly dressed mannequins from the Paris fashion houses fled in terror. The first notes of anger came from the popular enclosures, from which the crowd invaded the track, tore up rails and snatched up chairs as missiles. In its fury the ‘mob tried to lynch the two jockeys. Firemen working desperately to quell the flames consuming the booths trans-. ferred their efforts to assist the police in the more serious business of beating back the frenzied crowds. Their hoses, were cut, and before heavy police rein-. fOrccments could be' rushed to' the course mounted Republican Guards were dragged from their horses and mobbed. In view of a slight resumption of calm the stewards decided to run the third race, but had to forgo this after the horses had been brought out owing to a fresh invasion of the track. The’ rioters lay down on the turf in front «f the horses. Large . reinforcements under the leadership of the Prefect of Police himself were rushed to the ground in motor coaches to quell the fighting. At 6 o’clock the mob was repulsed and ejected, leaving behind a ruined course —the turf torn and scattered with the fragments of thousands of shattered bottles. The results were serious, for the famous Grand Prix Meeting, usually attended by 250,000 people, was to take place on the following day. The Paris fire brigade had to be called in order to extinguish the fires started in the totalisator buildings and on the popular enclosures. The stewards, after examining the damage already done and the complete destruction of part of the elaborate decorations set out for the following day’s fashionable event, decided to return the public entrance money. Workmen had to work all night to restore some kind of order to the scene. Threatening weather and the fear of a renewal', of the serious disturbances of the previous day, robbed the Grand Prix function on July 1 of much of its customary brilliance as the climax of the Paris season.