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AURORA OPENING WEEK AWAY Duties of Patrol Judges Will Be Increased This Season. - Connected Directly to Stewards Stand by Telephones Saliva Test to Be Made in Every Race. AURORA, 111., April 21. Innovations that should result in the most formful racing in years will be in effect at Aurora when the Fox Valley race course opens the Illinois season with its nineteen-day spring meeting a week from Friday. Most important from the practical viewpoint will be the greatly increased duties of the patrol judges, those officials who are posted at strategic points along the route of a race to observe details of its running that are not always apparent from a distant stewards stand. There will be three of them at Aurora and inasmuch as the chief qualification for the job will be a thorough knowledge of horsemanship, there is likely to be little in the running of any race that will escape their eyes. Patrol judges have been used for years, of course, but until this season they have had little standing. Usually one was posted at the far turn and if the stewards thought they saw crowding or interference at that distant point, they sometimes sent for the patrol judge and asked him what he had seen. Under the new system at Aurora, each of the three patrol judges will be connected with the stewards stand by field telephone and he will be required to make an immediate report after each race. Whether he has seen any infraction will have no bearing on his duty to make a report, and the three reports will be in the hands of the stewards before any race is made official. Another change of importance is in connection with the saliva test, which Aurora was the first track in Illinois to use as a means of determining whether a horse had been given a stimulant. At the last meeting only two cases were found at Aurora, in which the mild stimulant caffeine which is found in coffee was indicated by the result of the test; both trainers were barred. Previously, however, the winners of only two races daily were tested. The races to be tested were determined by lot. Because of the chance that the lots might order tests made in two early races, and thus leave a loophole for horses which were running in the later events, Aurora officials were anxious that the tests be applied to all win-1 ners. At the coming meeting every winner will be subjected to a saliva test, as well as such other horses as the stewards may desire, to make the public safeguards at Aurora absolutely complete. The usual precautions against permitting unfit horses to start will, of course, be continued. All horses are examined in the paddock by the stewards and by the veterinarian of the Illinois State Racing Commission, Dr. George McKillip. In addition James E. Farley will be on hand in the paddock before each race to make certain of the identification of each horse that is being sent to the post.
