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  An Aura of Confusion!     

Aurora Downs Trying to find the history of Chicago Racetracks is like following a trail of breadcrumbs that half of which have been eaten, Aurora Downs is no exception.

Aurora Downs Trying to find the Opened in 1891 it ended life as a half mile harness track named Fox Fields. Between that time it was closed, opened, closed, opened, etc. It ran Standardbreds it ran Thoroughbreds, for a time in the 1930's it even hosted the Illinois Derby.

In 2011 there is no sign that a race track ever existed in Aurora, at least other places name a street, a mall, or something to remember a fallen track by. It also appears that Mrs. O'Leary's cow never made it out to Aurora, as it visited nearly every other track in Illinois. 

You have to give Ray Gillian credit for trying to keep racing alive in North Aurora, but the fact that the track only ran Sundays and had programs printed on a copying machine, it probably never really had a chance to succeed.