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Horsemen look forward to higher purses next year at racino
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
Horsemen are starting to ship their horses out of town as the final week of racing begins Monday.
“I think it went well except for the real cold weather, but it was cold everywhere this winter except south Florida,” noted trainer Joe Poole. He is beginning to move his horses to Cleveland’s Thistledown Racino, which has a circuit established with Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course for Ohio horsemen. That is for 25 weeks of racing at each facility, with a week off between each track.
Hollywood Gaming canceled only five race days, and made them all up.
“To be honest, it surprised a lot people with some of the days we did race, but the jockey colony was pretty tough this year, and they’re really kind of the guys that when it’s real cold out decide whether we ride or not,” Poole said.
Elliot Sullivan, a trainer from Berlin Center, said the local turnout for race days was welcomed on top of having a local track.
“It’s something you never fathom, you know, having racing 10 minutes from your house,” Sullivan said. “Growing up, never would” have thought “we’d have a racetrack in Austintown.”
Sullivan is in second place for the trainer standings behind Jeff Radosevich, who began the winter season with 36 stalls. Sullivan had 20.
Horsemen and Ed Vomacka, Hollywood Gaming racing secretary, discussed higher purses, or race winnings, for next racing season, which will begin in the fall after Thistledown’s season ends. Purses increased 5 percent for Ohio-bred races in January, and track officials added last Saturday’s $75,000 Austintown Filly Sprint late in the racing season.
“It’s having the purse money available and the agreement with the horsemen,” Vomacka said of that addition. “We do plan on running at least two open stakes races in the fall, and one of them will probably be [a] much-larger purse than $75,000. Again, that depends on projections and what we look at.”
Those projections include how much revenue is brought in by the more than 850 video lottery terminals that dot the gaming floor of the Austintown racino.
A portion of VLT revenue goes to the purses for the Ohio tracks.
Tim Hamm, owner of Blazing Meadows Farm in North Jackson, has run horses out at Hollywood Gaming this year. He anticipates a 30- to 35-percent increase in the purses to begin the next season.
“This track has filled a great void for the Ohio horsemen,” Hamm remarked.
Most trainers agree that with higher purses next year, the quality of racing will increase and some new horse trainers come to race locally. Vomacka noted that some Maryland tracks had horses shipped in to race at Hollywood Gaming.
“If they [purses] are a little bit higher, [Ohio horsemen] are going to stay. Why ship across the country?” questioned Radosevich.
Poole echoed his sentiments.
“It’s a lot easier, in my opinion, to race between Mahoning Valley and Thistledown than it would be to try to even take your horses and employees a long distance when you have 200 racing days in northern Ohio with good purses,” he said.
Among the tracks listed for trainers who ran at Hollywood Gaming that are beginning to shift to summer racing are Thistledown; Presque Isle in Erie, Pa.; and Mountaineer Park in Chester W. Va.