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TEXAS SPRING RACING DATES — # Epsom Downs to Begin on February 29 and End March 24. ♦ Arlington Downs to FoUow Houston Track and Race Twenty-One Days — Tentative Schedule. AUSTIN, Texas, June 25. — Following their success in adopting a non-conflicting schedule of fall dates for the three tracks that will operate in Texas again before the close of the year, the Texas Racing Commission and track executives went into a second session late yesterday, the result of which was the tentative approval of spring dates for 1936, as follows: Epsome Downs — February 29 to March 24 twenty-one days. Arlington Downs — March 23 to April 18 twenty-one days. Fair Park— April 20 to May 16 twenty-four days. The spring racing begins a week after the close of Alamo Downs long winter meeting at San Antonio, which will open January 1 and close February 22. Under this : arrangement Alamo Downs conducts a com-, bined winter and spring meeting, and pays I a double fee to the state. While the spring dates are labeled "tenta-I tive." it is believed there will be no further change. The fall schedule, under which Texas racing will begin at Dallas Septem- ber 28. and suspend for about two weeks with the close of the Epsom Downs meet- ing, is announced as official. Dallas will race twenty-five days, Arlington Down twen-j ty-one days, and Epsom Downs twenty-three I days. The December recess is a concession i to the retail merchants of the Texas cities, I who desired a cessation of racing during . the Christmas shopping weeks. Members of the commission expressed themselves as distinctly pleased over their success in avoiding the overlapping of dates which would have occurred under the orig-: inal proposal of dates by the tracks acting independently, and both the commissioners I and the track executives believe that the i new fall-winter-spring program, which pro-J vides racing from September 28 to May 16, , a period of seven and one-half months, with I two brief intermissions, will appeal to many , large stables which have not raced in Texas, and they predict a greater number of high-class horses for the Lone Star State meeting.
