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PREPARING FOR YONKERS DATES. New York, December 27. While the stewards of the Jockey Club have discussed the allotment of dates for next year in an informal way, it is announced that no definite decision will be arrived at until January 3, when the stewards are expected to take final action. The entrance of the Empire City track into the metropolitan circuit is the cause of the present delay In making up the schedule, but the Jockey Club stewards will make room for the Yonkers oourge in the arrangement of racing days. Not one, pfthe stewards has publicly intimated what disposition will be made of Empire City, so that a story published to the effect that the Yonkers track would receive twenty-two days in August was mere conjecture. As a matter of fact it is known that the Jockey Club stewards are particularly anxious to provide an August meeting for Saratoga without a conflict. The stewards recognize the support racing has received up the state, and realize that the general demand for racing at Saratoga means a great deal. They also feel that if Saratoga shquld be wiped put they would probably meet with legislative opposition in that part of Up state, which would be t9 overcome. Consequently it is their aim to protect Saratoga as far as it lies within their power. In order, to accomplish tills end, therefore, the stewards, have made a canvass of the various racing associations and have received assurance, It is said, that all of the metropolitan tracks will agree to surrender two or three days each so that the Empire track may receive a place on the schedule. Taking into consideration that the big tracks have given moral and financial support to the racing game in this state, it is also said that the stewards do not see why they should step aside entirely for the Butler track, and with this idea in mind it is further stated that when the final allotment of dates Is made it will be found that Empire City has received a total of twenty days at least, the metropolitan racing season to open and close at Yonkers with ten-day sessions. If this turns out to be the decision of the turf magnates it will be an interesting matter whether James Butler and his partners in the Yonkers track win accept the situation gracefully or will decide to go ahead independently with a race meeting in August. While few believe that the Yonkers people care for further trouble, it is said that if they conclude to run a meeting on their own hook there will be a declaration of, war In the shape of a conflicting meeting at either Brighton Beach or Jamaica, both essentially midsummer tracks. Such a state of affairs would not benefit the turf In this state and would be unfortunate, to say the least. But optimists believe that harmony will reign in the long run.
