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FAIRMOUNT INSPECTION DAY Usual Pre-Season Sunday Program Scheduled for April 30 This Year. Cliff Abbo and Don Fair Join General Manager Burnett and Racing Secretary Richard Leigh. COLLINSVILLE, 111., April 18. Inspection day, a preopening feature of every Fair-mount Park meeting, will be staged Sunday, April 30, six days before the curtain is officially lifted on the twenty-seven day campaign, Saturday, May 6. Such was the announcement yesterday of general manager D. C. Burnett, who revealed a test race and a "surprise feature," to be revealed later, will highlight the open-house program which, in past years, has served as an appetizer to fans for the regular racing menu. "A field of eight horses, with jockeys up, will compete in this years test race, with the improved Thomas camera catching the result," said Burnett yesterday, "but there is another feature which we will spring for the fans, which I am sure will make it the most colorful inspection day we have ever had across the river. I am not able to reveal now just what this plan is, for it is still in the working-out process, but it will be announced in about ten days." Meanwhile, yesterday the official family grew to four with the arrival of judge Cliff Abbo and announcer Don Fair to augment general manager Burnett and racing secretary Dick Leigh, who have been on the scene for about ten days. Both Abbo and Fair will help in the preparations for the opening. OPTIMISTIC OVER OUTCOME. Abbo, who has been coming here regularly for almost a decade, opined that the coming spring meeting loomed as the best he has attended. "Looking over the racing secretarys stable requests I see many outstand-1 ing new horsemen either here or going to be here, while some of the best of the regulars are also returning. I will miss my guess if local fans dont see some of the best racing in the history of the plant." Both Abbo and Fair came in from New Orleans, where they vacationed for several weeks after working the Fair Grounds meeting. Three more stables also reached the grounds yesterday, the most important being that of L. W. Kidd, the Idaho Falls, Idaho, turfman, who will race here for the first time. Kidd brought in eleven horses headed by the good sprinter Off Time, which formerly raced for the millionaire plane manufacturer, W. E. Boeing, but other capable ones in the barn are Atholton, American Emblem, Sky Wind, and Kayak, the latter some-1 times confused with Kayak H., the 1939 Santa Anita Handicap winner. Coming, too, was the promising seventeen-year-old apprentice, Otto Grohs, who rode nine winners at the recent Hot Springs meeting. B. L. Bethel came in with five horses, in eluding Gaming and John Tio, the latter a well-known mud runner, while J. Burks shipped four, including Zipalong and Wild 1 1 Beauty. Word was received that Burks had a serious automobile accident en route from I New Orleans and he is at present in a ! Vicksburg, Miss., hospital.
