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AURORA OPENING NEXT Fox Valley Meeting Inaugurates 1937 Illinois Season Saturday. Public Invited to Inspect Improvements to Plant Sunday Management Offering 125,000. AURORA, 111., April 24. Six months of turf warfare among the thoroughbreds opens for Chicago next Saturday, when the Fox Valley Jockey Club opens the gates of the Aurora race track for a nineteen-day meeting. On opening day it will be the Fox Valley Inaugural Handicap that headlines the eight-race card, and on May 22, closing day, it will be the 2,000 added Illinois Derby that will prove a magnet to draw the largest crowd the Aurora track has ever known. For Illinois Derby Day in 1937 is once more on Saturday, and general manager Robert S. Eddy, Jr., and his associates plan to handle a record attendance. FOLLOW USUAL CUSTOM. As has been the custom in the past, the Sunday before the opening is open house day at the Aurora plant, with the public invited to inspect the grounds and give its approval to the improvements which annually are made at the track. Sunday will be a day of activity for more carloads of horses are due in from Texas and California, and a final inspection of the entire plant will be made. With 25,000 to be distributed, more Continued on ticenty-sccond page. AURORA OPENING NEXT "Continued from first page. than has been disbursed at any previous Aurora meeting, the Fox Valley track leads off on a Chicago season that is expected to set new highs for recent years both in the amount of money put up for horsemen to strive for, and in the caliber of racing presented. Most tracks have already announced more pretentious meetings for the 1937 season, and Aurora will start the Chicago cam- paign in fitting style. CAMERA FOR CLOSE FINISHES. Purses have been raised at the track, a Waite moving picture camera has been installed to call the close finishes, an announcing system of latest type has been installed, with a new announcer, Don Fair, well known at western tracks, to handle the calling of the races. The track itself has been improved with the addition of many tons of red sand to the black soil. The rear of the grandstand has been glassed in for the comfort of spectators on the cooler days, and other minor improvements have been made at the track. As for horses, every one of the thousand and one stalls will be occupied on opening day with a higher grade of thoroughbred. "We are ready to start the meeting right now," said Mr. Eddy yesterday. "Our patrons will find numerous improvements over a year ago, and they will also find the better horses have been given more opportunities for purse money than previously. I believe Chicago is in for a fine year of racing, and we hope to lead off with the best sport possible."
