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FAIRM0UNT TRACK IN SHAPE Course Ready to Stage Meeting Tomorrow if Necessary. Illinois Racing Commission Grants Trade Reprieve on Installing "Tote" for This Seasons Sport D. C. Burnett, general manager of Fair-mount Park, announced today that the southern Illinois course, catering to Collinsville and St. Louis, could swing open its gates tomorrow if the occasion required. Burnett made this statement upon his return to Aurora, where he is resident manager, after a trip to Fairmount over the week-end with Robert S. Eddy, Jr., president of the Fox Valley Jockey Club, which operates Aurora. Burnett made the trip to Fairmount expressly for the purpose of inspecting the plant and arranging final details for the thirty-one day meeting opening there on Decoration Day, May 30, and continuing through July 4. Burnett stated upon his return, "I was agreeably surprised at the condition of Fair-mount. We could open there tomorrow if necessary. The plant is in tip-top condition, and John Le Blanc, track superintendent, has the course in shape for racing right now. Everything is in readiness. The grandstand, which was newly painted this spring, looks like a new stand, and the new parking space, which was graded and re-cindered, now ranks among the finest parking facilities of any course in America. Fairmount truly should have its greatest meeting and there already has been a great demand for stalls." There are close to 100 thoroughbreds now on the grounds at Fairmount, exercising daily. Le Blanc has the course in A-l condition, and the early arrivals are receiving many useful moves over the oval. READY FOR STABLING. Racing secretary Dick Leigh, who serves in the same capacity at Aurora, where he is now getting things ready for t-e twenty-four day meeting opening May 2 at the latter course, is receiving stall applications at both Aurora and Fairmount. Leigh stated that horses may now be stabled at Fairmount, but only upon the condition of first receiving official notification and approval from him. One of the most important announcements made by Burnett was that Fairmount would not have the totalizator installed for its spring meeting and that the Illinois Racing Commission had granted them permission to run without the installation of the big electric mutuel board. The reason this permission was granted was because of the inability of the totalizator people to put in the betting machine in time for the meeting, inasmuch as their manpower in putting in the new "tote" at Aurora and following up at Lincoln Fields and other Chicago tracks had been completely exhausted. In other words, it would be humanly impossible, to install a "tote" at Fairmount -by May 30, so the commission immediately granted permission to Burnett and his associates to run without one. The commission had previously decreed that all Illinois tracks . must install a "tote" for their 1938 meeting, but there was nothing else to do under the circumstances at Fairmount.
