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"ELECTRIC EYE" TEST BIG SUCCESS New Timing Device Tried Out Sunday to Satisfaction of Large Crowd — Hawthorne Admission Tickets of to Grandstand and to Clubhouse Include State and Federal Taxes ■ ■ The first public test of "electric eye" timing, which drew a large crowd to Hawthorne Sunday, indicated that it will be a complete success. The starting ray crosses the track at the starting point of the race — some sixty feet in front of the starting gate — and when the first horse in the field crosses the invisible beam a contact is broken that starts the electric chronometer on the stewards stand. When the first horse crosses the invisible ray that marks the finish line, another contact is broken that stops the clock. In timing Pthree fields of horses in the public test, the infra-red ray proved infallible. The change in timing method will likewise have the effect of lining up the time figures registered at Hawthorne with those at other tracks. When the electric chronometer was installed at the west side course several years ago it was found necessary to start it by the breaking of a contact in the starting gate. For this reason the starting gate had to be moved up to the actual starting point of races, instead of being set up sixty feet back of the starting point, as is the custom elsewhere. The change made the time at Hawthorne much slower than at other tracks, for it was being registered from a standing start, instead of from a running start, common at other race courses. The race track admission ticket — which has in recent seasons become a sort of complicated cross between a passport and an income tax blank, by reason of the addition of special tax tickets, service charges and season badges — will become once more a simple race track admission ticket when Hawthornes thirty-day race meeting opens July 30. Announcement was made Sunday that a single type of ticket will be used at the west side course. Admission to the grandstand I will be . Admission to the clubhouse will I be . Admission from the grandstand to j the clubhouse will be . All taxes— state and j federal— will be absorbed by the track and I are included in the and admission ; scale. 1 This absorbing of taxes will not be the | only innovation of the Hawthorne meeting. j The old Hawthorne practice of closing the mutuels by the clock will be done away with, j and betting will cease when all the horses i have entered the starting gate. And for those interested in mechanical novelties, the Continued on ticenty-fifth page. "ELECTRIC EYE" TEST SUCCESS Continued from first page. infra-red ray, popularly known as the "electric , eye," will be used to reduce the timing • ■ of races to an exact science. The change in the closing time of the mutuels is the third that has been made in Chicago this season in the experiments • which the Illinois Racing Commission has been carrying on. When the season began I three months ago at Aurora, the commission ! ruled that the mutuels must close when the-first horse entered the starting gate. This ruling held during he Washington Park meeting. When racing began at Arlington the commission permitted betting to continue until the race was started, for the use of the totalisator at Arlington permitted the locking of the betting machines by the throwing of a switch in the stewards stand, and there was no possibility of tickets being sold while the race was on. Hawthorne has this season installed the Bidwill automatic mutuel ticket machines, and, because these can also be locked by throwing a switch by the commission steward, the betting will be allowed to continue until the horses are in the gate. The closing time of the mutuels is not as important this year, anyway, as it has been in previous seasons. By the time the Aurora and Washington Park meetings had ended the race followers had become so accustomed to making their wagers early that Arlington has had no last-minute rushes to the mutuel windows, such as used to be seen in other seasons. Often only a few hundred dollars will be added to a pool of many thousands by the last-minute- rush. «
