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Harness Racing Season Opens at Aurora Downs Inaugural Trot in Two Divisions, Each to Race Over Two Distances AURORA DOWNS, Aurora, 111., May 9.— Harness racing with pari-mutuels comes back to metropolitan Chicagos sports scene Monday evening as Aurora Downs opens a 60-night meeting under lights with a nine-race card featured by the ,500 Inaugural Trot. With a tremendous supply of racing stock quartered on the grounds here, the Aurora meeting figures to be one of- the richest and most intensely competitive harness race seasons in Illinois since pari-mutuels were legalized on the old sulky sport in 1945. Mondays opening card is typical. The Inaugural Trot, originally scheduled as a ,000 feature to be raced in two dashes of six and one-half furlongs and one mile, drew 22 entries out of an original list of 25 nominations. As a result, the race has been divided into two divisions, each of which will face a two-dash test. To compensate for the divided racing, the purse has been raised to ,500. The other five events on the card drew a total overnight entry of 65, although only eight will face the starting gate in each of these five races. In the featured Inaugural Trot, the two divisions drew evenly balanced fields with at least six contenders sure to draw heavy popular support. One of these is March First, a consistent winner a year ago, driven by Eddie Cobb of Washington Court House, O. March First is heavily staked throughout the country this season. Dee Stover of Mt. Vernon, 111., has a solid entry in each division — E. J. Bakers Mc-Kenzie King in the first section, and Peter Estes in the second — while Harry Burright, the nations leading driver last year, will go with Sisters Spud Hanover, a field horse, in the second section. The two biggest threats, off recent workouts, appear to be La Vitesse, a steady winner at the Phoenix, Ariz., winter meeting, and Wayward, four-year old star of William I Yates stable from Bloomington.
