Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/99

THEATRES, FESTIVALS, SPORTS 75 who look on. ... At last the course is run, the judges press the laurel upon a streaming brow, and the victor and his panting steeds stand forth to receive the plaudits of the crowd. The Pasadena Tourney is worth a long journey to see. It is the perfection of Flower Revels. And never once, as so often on the Mediterranean, has the weather interrupted its ceremonies in the twenty-five years since the founder of the Valley Hunt Club, Dr. Charles F. Holder, and his as- sociates conceived the parade. Sports. The topography and bracing temperament of California are responsible for the variety and vi- rility of her sports. Surpassing horses and ath- letes are bred in this generous climate, which knows no " closed season " except for the hunts- man and the fisher. The baseball season opens in March; at Christ- mas the university teams are still booting the pigskin across the gridiron, while their Brothers of the Snow, well ear-muffed and sweatered, are skating on the flooded meadows of the Yosemite, tobogganing at Quincy, or snow-shoeing at Lake Tahoe. The Olympic Club of San Francisco has an an- nual New Year's swim off the beach near the Cliff House. Water baseball and polo are played