Horsemen bet big on Hollywood Mahoning Valley
Jaydynn Radoseviche feeds a treat to Sam Way. Jake and Shelly Radoseviche..moved their stable of horses from Grove City to Chardon to be closer to the racetracks up in the area. They will be involved heavily in Hollywood.
By ROBERT CONNELLY | rconnelly@vindy.com
CHARDON
With many surrounding tracks closing for winter, horses are now arriving at Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course.
For Northeast Ohio horsemen, Hollywood Gaming remains the only game in town as Thistledown Racino in Cleveland ends its season today, and Belterra Park Gaming and Entertainment Center in Cincinnati had its last day Oct. 19.
Live racing begins Nov. 24, and Hollywood Gaming is set for eight races a day on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. Penn National Gaming Inc. officials say the reason for the early week races is to capture simulcast betting dollars.
Not many people traveled with the Beulah Park license, which was transferred to Austintown and resulted in the closing of that historic track in the Columbus area. Jake and Shelly Radosevich did, purchasing a 58-acre property in Chardon, between Thistledown and Hollywood Gaming, last year. Jake’s brother Jeff Radosevich, based in Hiram, told them about the property.
“In a sense, we were kind of done with Beulah. Change is good,” Shelly said. “It would have been nice if they could have fixed Beulah up though and could have rehabbed it a little, and I think it would have done just as good as the Youngstown one.”
The Radosevich’s Chardon facility hadn’t been used in a number of years and was acquired through a sheriff’s sale. It’s just Jake and Shelly on the property, renting out a few apartments on the farm, and handling the 60-some horses there seven days a week. Jake does the touch- up work, such as putting up new fencing; they have been here since last June.
“We were fortunate to move,” Shelly Radosevich said. “We thought we would have a good opportunity with the track moving, but it’s been hard – we haven’t sold our other property yet.”
That property is a 28-acre farm outside of Grove City, the home of Beulah. There was a lot of history at Beulah Park, which held its inaugural meet in 1923, and especially for Jake and Shelly, who lost their son Joshua to a horse accident at the track in 2005.
Since that happened, they have owned fewer horses and focused more on training, Shelly said. The New York Times profiled their younger son, Jacob Radosevich, who followed Joshua’s path and became a jockey a few years ago.
Shelly said that Jacob has a good career but has had injuries. He recently hurt his leg when a horse rolled onto him.
“It’s a dangerous game. Being a jockey, you know that’s why you got an ambulance following you. To make the big bucks, you’ve got to take the risks,” Jake said.
While driving around his less-than-half-a-mile outdoor track, Jake pointed out his horses. Two colts were by themselves. A section of broodmares, or breeding horses, and yearlings were grouped together. All were free to run, and each had open-faced sheds to rinse off and rest.
The point of this is to let the horses roam free for a period of time between races or race seasons so they are not at the track all the time.
“They come out and relax and learn how to be a horse,” he said.
They also have an indoor track, 0.25 of a mile with stalls in the center; a circle room for exercise walking; and an outdoor track for the training. The Radoseviches have just four stalls at Hollywood Gaming, but can rotate horses through those as they get closer to their races.
Relocating
Hollywood Gaming officials said recently that only 10 to 20 percent of employees from Beulah came to Austintown. One of those employees is Ed Vomakca, the racing secretary. Joe Poole, another Ohio horse trainer who had been based in the Grove City area, has 18 stalls at Hollywood Gaming. He is renting a townhouse for the winter and living with two of his sons.
“Not being home for the first time in the winter time, it’s going to be a little tough for me,” Poole said as he moved his horses in last week. “Not seeing [my youngest son] play sports and all that. It’s going to be tough – no Beulah Park anymore.”
Communities between Thistledown and Hollywood Gaming have several trainers and owners, including Rembrandt Wright’s trainers, Mark and Rachael Maddox, who operate out of Garrettsville. Wright and his wife decided not to occupy any stalls at Hollywood Gaming because they are close enough to drive, sitting on the Portage-Trumbull County line.
Jeff Radosevich has 36 stalls at the facility, which he said is fewer than what he normally has. But like Wright and Jake Radosevich, he can rotate horses in from his Hiram facility and from horses he has at his brother’s Chardon farm.
Hollywood Gaming will continue the running of the Joshua Radosevich Memorial Stakes, set for Dec. 15, with a guaranteed purse of $50,000. The race is for 2-year-olds and will be six furlongs, or 0.75 of a mile. Entries for that race close Dec. 3. Another traditional Beulah Park race is being carried over – the Ruff/Kirchberg Memorial Handicap with $50,000 guaranteed.
Mark Loewe, Penn National vice president of Ohio racing operations, said Hollywood Gaming received stall applications from horse owners in West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, but also some from Illinois and Massachusetts – even a few from Kentucky and New York.
“All those locations are having facilities closing,” Loewe explained. “In those states, there are racetracks of all different levels of competition.”
Hollywood Gaming has 988 horse stalls in 13 barns as well as 54 stalls for horses that are only racing that day at the track. The stalls are 10 feet by 11 feet, which Dave Basler, executive director with the Ohio Horsemens Benevolent and Protective Association, said is standard for racetracks.
PURSES
The purses at Hollywood Gaming will run between $55,000 and $60,000 a day, said Chris McErlean, Penn National corporate vice president of racing. That compares with Beulah Park’s last season, which averaged $30,000 a day.
“Any time you have better purses, you’re going to attract more horses and trainers and owners,” said Jeff Radosevich.
Purses are paid out to the owners of horses based on where they finish each race.
A condition book lists the specifications for each race during a two-week time span and sets the purse amount. The book for Hollywood Gaming details percentages given to the top six finishers based on how many horses are in the field. For a field of 12 starters, 60 percent goes to first place. It is standard in the industry that the jockey gets 10 percent of the winnings, with owners dividing up the rest of the winnings.
Purses come from pari-mutuel wagering, which is the combination of bets placed at the track for live racing and through simulcast betting, and revenue from the video lottery terminals from the racino. An agreement was reached by the OHBPA to race 100 days at both Mahoning Valley and Thistledown, with a week off between each season. In that agreement, more than 10.5 percent of the video-lottery terminal income generated at each facility will be paid to the OHBPA with a minimum of 80 percent of those funds going toward purse money.
McErlean explained that the purses here were based on “some assumptions and calculations based on what we think the business levels will be, and [figuring] out what pot of money will be there for the purses.”
There was a $3 million loss taken from Beulah Park by Penn National. “In order to keep the purses somewhat competitive and at a sustainable level, we actually had to, for lack of a better term, subsidize the purses at Beulah Park,” McErlean explained.
That’s known as an overpayment of purses and Penn National can recoup lost funds by reducing purses in future years, according to its agreement with the OHBPA, McErlean said. Penn National has “actually already been rectified based on the revenue that has come in in the first few months,” he added.
Loewe said anticipation is mounting as the facility nears its racing opening — and “if everyone comes, we’ll be just about at capacity.”
WEATHER
Penn National officials and horsemen are waiting to see how racing in Northeast Ohio will play out. Beulah Park was in southwest Ohio, where winter weather is not as severe.
Jake Radosevich and Hollywood Gaming racing secretary Ed Vomacka said that the Buelah track had more issues with thawing and “cold freezing” overnight. OHBPA’s Basler said it was common for weather at Beulah to be 20 degrees overnight, but then the sun would shine, and it would reach 40 degrees — making the track sloppy.
Jake Radosevich said horses, due to their cold nature, love the cold, but the jockeys riding them, not so much. “Here [snow] lasts a couple weeks, which is kind of good for the horses because it’s like icing their legs every day,” Shelly Radosevich noted.
“They’re happy when it’s cold. They get cheerful,” Jake Radosevich said of horses. “You don’t see horses go down because of the cold. Now go into the summertime, you see horses getting heatstroke all the time.”
Vomacka said they can race through snow, unless it’s a foot deep.
“We don’t know what to expect, and we’re going to have to work with the horsemen in terms of being able to run the races, keep the facilities operational,” McErlean said. “It’s no doubt going to be a challenge.”