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Live racing begins today at Hollywood Gaming
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
The horses are here and it’s time for racing to begin today at Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course.
The first race is set for 12:45 p.m.
Hollywood Gaming will feature thoroughbred racing on its one-mile track Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays over the winter racing season beginning today. Those races will be in the afternoon, mostly beginning between 12:30 and 1 p.m. The minimum bet for a live race is $2.
The only days regularly scheduled for racing to not have live races from now until Jan. 1 for this season are holiday-related: Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
Many officials from Penn National Gaming Inc., Austintown Township and Mahoning County will be on hand during today’s festivities. Eight races are scheduled for each race day at Hollywood Gaming, with six substitute races in case one of those eight cannot sufficiently fill with a desired number of horses.
Applications for the races are due a few days in advance so that track officials can determine if a race needs to be switched out. If a race is switched for a substitute race, those purses are generally lower, Hollywood Gaming racing secretary Ed Vomacka said.
The races, however, have been filling up.
Today’s races have a total of 81 horses set to go. Vomacka explained that five of those races have 12 horses signed up and there are two six-horse fields and one nine-horse field. There will be 28 minutes between each race for the track to be reset for the next race. He said the last race will be at 4 p.m. on most race days.
As far as last week’s inclement weather, Vomacka said, “In a way it was a blessing to let us know what we need to do with the weather ahead.”
Weather forecasts are calling for 50s and the possibility of rain this afternoon. “Compared to what it could be, I will take rain any day now,” Vomacka said last week.
TRACK SURFACE
Mark Loewe, Penn National vice president of Ohio racing, explained the track’s surface. It has a sub-base, made up of dirt from this area, which is covered by a layer of material. On top of that is 6 inches of clear stone for drainage followed by a layer of fabric material. Clear stone is a type of rock or stone used for drainage.
That is topped off by 6 inches of stone dust followed by 4 inches of compacted sand, the top layer. That sand is from a quarry in Geauga County that services Mountaineer Racetrack, Casino & Resort in Chester, W.Va., and Thistledown Racino in the Cleveland area.
Loewe explained earlier this year: “The reason we went that way is because in this environment, we wanted materials that we saw were able to be used in the winter months in this temperature.”
purses
Horsemen are encouraged that purses will increase over time at Hollywood Gaming.
Patrick Ellsworth, Thistledown racing secretary, said its purses went from $78,000 on average last year to ending its season at $110,000 in purses per day. Hollywood Gaming purses are starting out between $55,000 and $60,000 a day.
The North Randall racino also has seen its field size, or the number of horses in a race, increase over the past three years — from 6.6 to 7.6, and this year was 7.9. Ellsworth said anything above 8 for field size is very good.
“Personally, I didn’t expect [purses] to go up that much, but I’m not going to complain about it. It’s excellent,” Ellsworth said.
As far as how the Thistledown season went, Ellsworth said as the purses remained high there was increased attention from horsemen in Kentucky and Illinois.
“We had so much interest in horses coming from Churchill [Downs] and Arlington Park, just to name a few. Those are two of the biggest racetracks in the country,” he said. “It’s definitely a testament to our program if they feel our purses are worth making that trip — I mean that’s an eight-hour trip from both tracks.”
Vomacka has seen similar interest. An agreement between the track and the horsemen stipulates that Hollywood Gaming has to allocate 80 percent of its stalls to horsemen who have consistently ran and stabled in the Buckeye State. So that leaves only 20 percent to outside states, but Vomacka said he has interest from New York and Massachusetts.
“Some of the East Coast tracks, guys are looking to get a foothold in Ohio,” he said.