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Horses set to arrive from now until live racing begins Nov. 24
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
Horses will continue to arrive from now until the first day of racing Nov. 24 as Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course opened its barns to horsemen Monday.
Hollywood Gaming officials expect about 100 horses to file in this week. After Thistledown Racino in the Cleveland area completes its racing season Sunday, the rest of the horses will arrive.
Ed Vomacka, Hollywood Gaming’s racing secretary, said horses arriving Monday were primarily from Belterra Park Gaming & Entertainment Center, which opened in Cincinnati in May, and Hazel Park Raceway in the Detroit area.
Among the trainers arriving Monday was Joe Poole, who operates out of Grove City, Ohio, where Beulah Park had been. Beulah Park’s license was transferred here by Hollywood Gaming’s parent company, Penn National Gaming Inc.
“I was impressed the first time I came and looked,” Poole said of the one-mile thoroughbred track that sits behind the racino.
Poole has 18 stalls at Hollywood Gaming and brought one of his two mascots Monday along with his horses — a black cat that was walking across in Barn 5, out of which Poole will run horses.
Vomacka and Penn National’s vice president of Ohio racing, Mark Loewe, said the majority of construction is completed.
“They still have a few barns that they need to number the stalls, and that’s about the only thing that I know is really unfinished,” Vomacka said.
Both Poole and Vomacka were at Beulah Park — Vomacka was the racing secretary there as well. Poole doesn’t expect many of the Beulah horsemen to make the journey across the state, choosing instead to race at a track across the Ohio-Kentucky state line over the winter.
Vomacka said between 10 percent and 20 percent of Beulah Park employees made the journey to Austintown with the track.
Both Vomacka and Loewe said Beulah employees had first pick of jobs, but some decided to stay with their families in Grove City.
All 988 stalls, in 13 barns, have been allocated to trainers.
On top of the 988 stalls, Hollywood Gaming will feature 54 stalls in an arrival barn — for horses looking to train or race at the facility that day.
Until live racing begins Nov. 24, trainers have the option to train on the track during two morning session times — 7 to 8:30 a.m., a 30-minute break to reset the track, and then again from 9 to 10:30 a.m.
Poole is going to take advantage of those morning times to let his horses “get adapted to the track because it’s a new surface.”
He continued, “I usually like to train my horses for at least a couple weeks over it ... before I try to run them across. ... With this being a new surface ... you know it’s not settled in good or anything yet.”
Hollywood Gaming will race for 100 days on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays over the winter during the afternoon.
For those worried about the cold, Vomacka explained some things about winter racing: “From my experience at Beulah, unless you get a foot of snow that morning, generally we can race through snow. It’s just a question of getting it off the track or if it’s only a little bit of snow.
“I’m more afraid of wind-chill factor for the jockeys. There’s only so much you can take because they have to do a certain weight [to ride], so they can’t really bundle up a whole lot. I think we give them an extra two pounds in the winter so they can put something on underneath.”