History of the Burke Library

More modern additions have been made in the decades following the establishment of the Carleton F. Burke Library at the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association

TRACY GANTZ

CTBA PHOTO

BY TRACY GANTZ

In the near future, the Carleton F. Burke Memorial Library will transition to California Polytechnic University, Pomona, where it will continue to be available locally. Cal Poly also has the resources to make some of the library’s volumes available digitally, with worldwide access via the Internet.

None of these technologies were available, of course, when the California Toroughbred Breeders Association began the creation of a library in the late 1950s. Te idea of a library grew out of the CTBA’s move to 201 Colorado Place in Arcadia, ofces the organization maintains to this day. Te creation of the California Toroughbred Breeders Foundation, now the California Toroughbred Foundation, allowed for easier donations to the library, which was formally dedicated in 1964.

Two years later noted Turf writer and racing historian B.K. Beckwith began a series of articles about the library in this magazine, then known as Te Toroughbred of California. His frst article, printed in the June 1966 issue, reported on the creation and development of the

library, and excerpts from that article are reprinted here, along with historical and current photos of the Burke Library.

“In January of 1957 the California Toroughbred Breeders Association moved from its rented and rather limited quarters on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood to a new and gracious building at 201 Colorado Place in Arcadia,” began Beckwith. “Tis long, ranch-house type structure, located on afable acreage almost within the shadow of Santa Anita’s towering stands, was the realization of a dream which its founders had harbored for nearly a quarter of a century.”

Beckwith noted that the CTBA had a “meager selection” of books at the rented Sunset Boulevard ofce, “only three or four small bookcases in which were stored some basically important reference books, such as charts and manuals and stud books, but even these were not in complete series form.”

Today, much of this material is available online. More than 60 years ago, however, equine research had to be done painstakingly by hand. To research a Toroughbred required delving into stud books for pedigree information and chart books for a horse’s racing record.

Beckwith’s article pointed out the diffculty of amassing such information.

Lou Rowan, then president of the CTBA, wrote an editorial that appeared in the January 1957 issue of this magazine. He suggested that people could help create a more complete library through donations.

Tat prompted contributions from early donors, listed by Beckwith as Peter Strub, Walter Hofman, Ted Williams, Dr. Chester Wilson, Walter Tryon, Col. George Caldwell, Carleton F. Burke, Frank Bishop, Ed and Tevis Paine, Col. T.E. Whitehead, the Los Angeles Turf Club, Dwight Murphy, Frank E. Kilroe,

TRACY GANTZ

Generous donations of collections, including art, have provided the nucleus of the Burke Library, a place to research pedigrees and race records in pre-Internet days

Kent Cochran, left, and Col. F.W. Koester helped expand the library collection

BERNARD OF HOLLYWOOD CTBA PHOTO

Mrs. Grace Cooper Vance, Mrs. Leone C. Hart, Lee Mosbacher, Kid North, and Tom Caldwell. Te CTBA also purchased many volumes to fll in the research gaps.

“During this formative period of the Library, many people were helpful in its growth,” Beckwith wrote, “but the real ‘leg work’ was, in great measure, carried on by the Association’s General Manager, Col. F.W. Koester. By actual contact and by hundreds of letters to friends and acquaintances who represented every phase of horse activity, he relentlessly and with the utmost dedication pursued his and the CTBA Directors’ dream of a complete equine athenaeum. If he heard that any individual had one or more horse books which might be consigned to oblivion he got in his car right then and drove to the person’s house before he or she could either heave the article out or otherwise dispose of it.”

It took until 1959 for the library to really take shape.

“For several months prior to that date the Directors of the CTBA had been considering the matter of purchasing the renowned Kent Cochran collection,” wrote Beckwith. “Cochran, Daily Racing Form columnist and former editor of Te Toroughbred of California, had been an avid book collector for many years. He had become known throughout the horse world as a man always in the market for equine literature and had acquired a truly remarkable, astoundingly diversifed and very valuable assemblage of writings which covered every facet and function of horse activity.”

Cochran had such a knowledge of the California Toroughbred racing and breeding industry that the CTBA in the 1970s urged him to write a book about it. Ten in his late 80s, Cochran declined due to his health and age. Instead, Mary Fleming, on staf of this magazine, undertook the project, relying heavily on Cochran’s help, writing that his letters “were flled with rich memories and reminiscences.” Fleming dedicated A History of the Toroughbred in California to Cochran, who died at age 92 and didn’t see the completed project.

Cochran’s collection of books totaled more than 4,000 and were a valuable addition to the Burke Library. Beckwith noted that the collection flled in gaps in chart books and American Racing Manuals. It included bound volumes of such magazines as Te Spirit of the Times; Turf, Field and Farm; and The Sporting Mirror. Some of the California racing reportage in the Cochran collection dates back to the 1850s.

Once the Foundation was incorporat-

Early photos of the library room at the CTBA’s Arcadia offces include the 1964 dedication, right, as Col. Koester, center, spoke to the crowd

CTBA PHOTOS

ed, allowing for tax-exempt donations, the library expanded even further, to more than 6,000 volumes. Beckwith listed more donors:

Mrs. William E. Still, Louis R. Rowan, Pat Dougherty, Mrs. W.H. Hofman Jr., Clif Burton, the breeders associations of Argentina and Brazil, the Washington Horse Breeders Association, Gerald Farquharson, C.D. Alexander, Maj. Gen. W.A. Worton, Te British Bloodstock Agency, the International Bloodstock Agency, E. Allen Russell, Mrs. Frances W. Peck, the Hollywood Park Turf Club, Henry G. White, Phil Catlin, Albert W. Harris, Mrs. Augustus Taylor Jr., Edward H. Honnen, J.A. Allen and Company of London, Humphrey Finney, Franco Varola, Cesare Beltrami, Dr. M.E. Ensminger, E.V.E. Harris, Charles Clifton, Dick Nash, Te Blood-Horse, Cyril Hall, Dr. Myron Tom, Silvia Small, B.K. Beckwith, Maurice V. Point, Franklin Reynolds, Bert Clark Tayer, Ruth Clements, Myron Fox, Chester Jones, James Higgins, Judge Kingsley Macomber, the Morris Animal Foundation, Kurt Mayer, R.E. Leighninger, Te Toroughbred Record, Te Toroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, and Te Bloodstock Breeders Review.

In the spring of 1963, the CTBA expanded its ofce, enlarging the library and providing additional room for the magazine and for management operations.

“Tis was done by making several sizable changes which, fortunately, both the property and the design of the headquarters made possible,” wrote Beckwith. “Aside from a lengthened mail room and a new front ofce on the west, a new storeroom and magazine make-up room were added on the east end. Tis allowed the Library to extend through what had been the old storeroom and thus gave it an expansion of 20 by 21 feet.”

At that time, Col. Koester and the CTBA board of directors decided to honor the late Carleton F. Burke by naming the library after him, with a dedication ceremony held March 6, 1964. Burke, who died in 1962, had been the frst chairman of the California Horse Racing Board, director of racing at Santa Anita, and a secretary-treasurer of the CTBA.

Two years later following that dedication, the library received a contribution of 2,638 books from Edward Lasker, a former CTBA director and prominent Toroughbred owner and breeder. Beckwith wrote that these included racing calendars representing 37 nations and districts, with some of the books going back to the 1700s.

Donations came in well past the time of Beckwith’s original article, leading to the collection topping more than 10,000 volumes today. In Cal Poly’s keeping, the library will continue to be known as the Burke Library, with the majority of the books going to the university. However, the CTBA will continue to house at the Arcadia ofce its entire collection of bound volumes of its own magazine, as well as bound volumes of Te Blood-Horse and Te Toroughbred Record.

When the Burke Library transitions to California Polytechnic University, Pomona, some of the library’s volumes will be digitized and made available worldwide via the Internet

TRACY GANTZ

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CALIFORNIA THOROUGHBRED BREEDERS ASSOCIATION 201 Colorado Pl, Arcadia, CA 91007 (626) 445-7800 • www.ctba.com