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Bettors reflect on first full season of racing at Hollywood Gaming
By ROBERT CONNELLY
AUSTINTOWN
The shorter drive isn’t just for convenience.
“If you got a bad day, you don’t have to think about it on the ride home for an hour. You ain’t got to beat up the dashboard,” remarked Mark Butch, 55, of Youngstown, with a smile and a laugh. He had a program spread out with a view of some of the televisions in the simulcast area earlier this week. As he was talking, another bettor began yelling at a televised race for his horse to run faster.
The drive from Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course to his Youngstown home is 10 minutes versus the one-hour trip from Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort, in Chester, W. Va.
Butch said he can place a few bets through simulcast and on the live racing and then head into work.
Other bettors like other aspects of the Austintown track as the fledgling racino ends its first full racing season this weekend.
For some of them, it was the realization of a local track after years of rumors of the possibility of a track, whether that be in New Castle or Mahoning Township in the Keystone State, or the Austintown track’s construction beginning after a year or two of talks.
Even though racing was in the brutal winter, Hollywood Gaming only canceled five race days, which were all made up.
That favorably compares to some other winter-season thoroughbred tracks in the country. According to Equibase, a data website on the horse racing industry, Aqueduct Racetrack, in South Ozone Park, New York, has had 17 cancellations since Jan. 1 and 15 of those were for weather. Similarly, Parx Casino, Bensalem, Pa., had 17 cancellations, 10 of which were for track conditions and six for weather.
“At any new racetrack, you’re going to have new challenges to face, but we’re very pleased with how well the track held up despite the harsh weather,” said Mark Loewe, vice president of Ohio racing with Penn National Gaming, Inc., parent company of the Austintown track.
Loewe credited the workers in charge of keeping the track in racing conditions for that.
In terms of the crowds, Loewe said those have been “strong” — and Bob “Railbird” Roberts, The Vindicator’s handicapper columnist, agreed.
“The thing that really impressed me the most was the enthusiasm of the fans. In Cleveland, even though they have better weather because they run the six nicer months, I don’t see this enthusiasm there anymore. I’m not surprised by it because there was this kind of enthusiasm at the off-track betting parlor in New Castle,” Roberts said.
That off-track betting site, operated by The Meadows Racetrack and Casino, south of Pittsburgh, closed in November due to competition from Hollywood Gaming. Two of its patrons, Wayne Young, 66, of Grove City, Pa., and Ken Rhodes, soon-to-be 66, of New Castle, Pa., take in races in Austintown.
A simulcast dispute between Penn National and another operator had limited the availability of some racetracks in the simulcast area, but Loewe said that was resolved in late March.
“This place is pretty well packed on Saturdays. The only thing I don’t like is the size of the fields” now, Rhodes said. Since nearby Mountaineer opened a few weeks ago, field sizes, or the number of horses in a race, have been lower as Hollywood Gaming’s first full winter season comes to an end.
“They’ve probably been splitting the horses. Until Mountaineer opened up, the fields were pretty high,” Rhodes noted. “Overall, my expectations are better than what I thought it was going to be.”
Some horsemen are also starting to move their horses to Thistledown Racino in the Cleveland suburbs as that season begins after Hollywood Gaming’s season ends.
Young and Rhodes were critical of the results board Hollywood Gaming features on its infield with the betting odds on each horse prior to the race and the winning time. They argued that it could feature more results and winnings than just the payouts for win, place and show, or first, second and third.
“I like the grandstand, it’s much better than Presque Isle [Downs & Casino]” in Erie, Pa., Young said. “You can see the paddock well from [the grandstand seats]. They probably need a buffet.”
Young gave the facility an 8 while Rhodes gave it an 8.5.
Butch has seen improvement since Hollywood gaming opened.
“In the beginning, it was weird because the track was new and deep, and the times were atrocious,” Butch reflected. Then after six weeks “all of a sudden they’re breaking records and running like they’re supposed to run. The track got firm and hardened up.”
Butch said he bets some in the simulcast area and some on the live races if the field size is high, or a betting line on a certain horse is favorable, such as 8-1 for example, or he likes a particular horse, or jockey-trainer combination.
“You have good days and bad days. If you have one good day, it can get you through two to three weeks because we don’t bet that much,” Butch said.
As for the upcoming Kentucky Derby, Butch said to watch out for American Pharaoh, who dazzled bettors with a win recently by 12 lengths in the Arkansas Derby in Hot Springs, Ark.
Loewe said workers will seal the track and treat it during the summer until the next racing season begins again in the fall.
“The horsemen were good, the jockeys were great and all the employees despite some pretty challenging days did an outstanding job of keeping things going,” Loewe said.