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i MARK TIME AT AURORA Fox Valley Track Ready to Open Illinois Season Friday. Biggest and Best Field in History of Inaugural Handicap Assured Registering Horses. AURORA, 111., April 28 Despite inclement weather, carpenters and painters have about completed work at the Fox Valley Jockey Clubs track here, where the Illinois racing season will be inaugurated Friday afternoon. The initial program is headed by the Fox Valley Inaugural Handicap, a sprint of six furlongs, that promises to prove one of the most attractive in the history of the picturesque course. According to racing secretary Richard A. Leigh, the field of starters may be one of the largest as well as the most formidable that has competed on opening day at the Aurora course. Entries for the Fox Valley Inaugural Handicap close Wednesday, with weights and declarations slated for Thursday at the regular time of the closing of the opening days program. Seven other events and a substitute are scheduled in support of the feature, equally divided in sprints and distance contests, thus assuring a diversified brand of thoroughbred sport for Illinois turf lovers, whose appetites are whetted by this time. Registration of thoroughbreds at the office of the racing secretary has been brisk during the past few days, and secretary Leigh expressed satisfaction at the high caliber of horses that will be available for the nineteen-day meeting. Among the most prominent stables that have already registered are included the Blue Ridge Farm, Clyde Troutt, Mrs. C. C. Winters, R. T. Watts, Mrs. J. Chesney, Joseph Cattarinich and others. Continued on nineteenth page. j MARK TIME AT AURORA Continued from first page. The foregoing stables include a number of Illinois Derby candidates, the 2,000 added stake that tops the Aurora stakes program, and is to come up -for decision on May 22, the final day of the meeting. In the Blue Ridge Farms lot are Understand, El Bailarino and Lame Duck, while Professor Paul serves as Mrs. Chesneys chief reliance for the test for three-year-olds. My Auntie, a consistent winner for R. T. Watts throughout the winter season in the South, is another, while Joseph Cattarinichs Rudolph Lad, though a maiden, is well regarded by his trainer, former jockey Frank Seremba. Numerous other topnotchers in the three-year-old ranks and of the older division are expected to bolster the list of material to a point never reached before. The minimum purse of 00 is proving an attraction to owners. Many thoroughbreds now quartered at Hawthorne will be vanned to Aurora for competition, then returned to the Cicero course following their races. R. S. Eddy, Jr., general manager and president of the Fox Valley Jockey Club, is optimistic regarding the forthcoming meeting, and predicts one of the biggest attendances in history for opening day. The ringing down of the curtain in Texas is the signal for several shipments from the Lone StrjState to Illinois, where campaigns are in order until the early fall.
