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DETROIT OPENING ON MAY 20 Preparations Well Under Way for Inaugural — Horse Colony Growing, With More Coming This Week-End. DETROIT, Mich., May 9.— With less than two weeks remaining before the opening of the Detroit racing season on Saturday, May 20, preparations for the meeting are being speeded along under the direction of president and general manager Clarence E. Lehr. There are more than 150 horses now quartered at the Fair Grounds course and with the close of the Pimlico meeting Saturday the thoroughbred colony is expected to be greatly augmented. During the next several days several shipments are due to arrive from Keeneland and next week will witness the unloading of the advance guard from Churchill Downs. Racing secretary Charles Henry will open his office tomorrow morning for the registration of horses and the receipt of nominations for the eleven stakes to be offered during the long session that will come to a close Saturday, July 15. Nominations for each stakes, however, do not close until several days before their running, but annually there are many entries made before the opening of the meeting. Since the Detroit Derby was abandoned, the Frontier Handicap and the Col. Alger Memorial Handicap are the leading fixtures. The latter will be offered on Memorial Day and usually serves as a preparation for the Frontier Handicap to be run over one and three-sixteenths miles. CHANGES IN PLANT. Several changes have been made to the plant since last season and much work has been done on the track proper. As soon as the weather permitted, Carter C. Curtis, general superintendent, started the work on the racing strip and he believes it to be in the best condition since the sport was revived here in 1933. Upon his return from Kentucky yesterday president Lehr brought word that he has booked reservations from many of the leading stables now campaigning at Churchill Downs. Among the stables shipping here are a division of the Milky Way Farm, Indian Lake stable, Ross Higdon, George Krehbiel, Joe Hall, Mrs. E. Oros, M. J. Schmitt, H. N. Lape, a division of Shady Brook Farm, J. E. Mason, John Oliver Keene, Dixiana, J. R. Collins, F. H. Carpenter, J. W. Barnes, L. V. Bellew, Jr., Mrs. R. J. Murphy, Byrum Bros., Mrs. Peggy Ainsworth Townsend, I. J. Collins, J. B. Respess, H. H. Temple, Jr., and several others. With few exceptions these establishments have participated in previous Detroit meet-. ings and with the Bomar stable, A. J. Abel, Fred M. Alger, Jr., and several others due to arrive from Maryland next week, the thoroughbred colony should be in keeping with that of other years.
