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OPEN HOUSE AT AURORA Improved Plant Will Be Inspected by Hundreds of Visitors. 2,000 Added Illinois Derby Feature of Aurora Meeting Opening Chicago Season Friday. AURORA, 111., April 25. The tenth racing season since the sport was legalized in Illinois will open Friday, when the Fox Valley Jockey Clubs annual spring meeting of nineteen days gets under way at Aurora. Hawthorne, Arlington Park, Washington Park, Lincoln Fields, and Sportsmans Park track will follow in order in a schedule that will keep the thoroughbreds in the Chicago sector until the last day of October. During that period numerous stake races will be decided which will have an important bearing upon the determination of the two-year-old championship, the three-year-old championship, and the handicap championship, for which older horses race. With purses as large as any in American, and with 158 racing days without a break, it is likely that Chicago will attract during a large part of the season most of the countrys horses of the better grade. First of Chicagos major stakes to come up for decision will be the 2,000 added Illinois Derby at a mile and a furlong, which will be run at Aurora on May 22. Coming after the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, the Illinois Derby is likely to attract this season, the best field in its history. Other three-year-old specials will be the Chicago Derby and the Arlington Classic later in the season. The better two-year-olds will see little action until the Arlington Futurity in July, and Washington Park is expected to announce a valuable juvenile race for its August meeting. If Washington Park fails to run its historic American Derby this year, it is considered likely that it will be replaced by a handicap for a large purse. The seasons opening feature will be the fourteenth running of the Fox Valley Inaugural Handicap at six furlongs at Aurora. Already an oversized field of Auroras best sprinters is in prospect, and racing secretary Dick Leigh believes it will attract the largest starting field in its history. Among the probable starters are Transmutable, Drombo, Flag Cadet, Lolschen, Hueu, Lady Federal, Woodlander, The Pelican, Heart Break, Mr. James, Mister Gander, Prince Pest, Mr. Ricks, Stolen Color, Brendard, Drombo, Sound Advice, Crout au Pot, Ding .Continued on third page. OPEN HOUSE AT AURORA Continued from first page. Bin, Croon, Fire Advance, The Darb, Pan-coast, and Garden Message. Many of these will arrive at Aurora tomorrow on a special eight-car express train that leaves the Arlington Downs track in Texas this afternoon. Aurora is the only local track that has gone in for extensive improvements this year. The track has been entirely resurfaced to a depth of twelve inches in order to give horses one of the softest cushions in the district to run over. Four new barns have been constructed, each housing fifty horses, to take care of the almost 1,000 thoroughbreds which will be on hand for the meeting. The Aurora mutuel plant has been entirely rebuilt to give it the longest main betting line in America. Numerous racegoers are expected to visit the track Sunday, where president Robert S. Eddy is holding open house.
