Horses return for Hollywood Gaming’s second live season

By ROBERT CONNELLY

rconnelly@vindy.com

AUSTINTOWN

The horses have begun to fill up the stalls at Hollywood Gaming at Mahoning Valley Race Course as the second live racing season nears.

“I love it here,” said Rickie Faulkner, a horseman from Berlin Center. “This is what I call home right here. I was so happy when they built this place. I used to have to travel to” Beulah Park, he said.

That track in Grove City, Ohio, was moved to Austintown to make way for Hollywood Gaming.

Faulkner was the first horseman to move horses into stalls Friday, the first day the animals could arrive. Faulkner works with his family in the business, including Joshua Faulkner, the trainer for the horses they moved into their 30 stalls.

Those horses came from Mountaineer Casino, Racetrack & Resort in Chester, W.Va. That track’s season was shortened and ends today.

That early track closure at Mountaineer combined with an earlier opening – Hollywood Gaming began racing at the end of November last year – led to 2,000 stall applications for 988 spots.

“With the change in schedules in this marketplace, specifically Mountaineer, we’ve had a lot of interest from Mountaineer horsemen, and the horsemen in Ohio have certainly been receptive to coming here more than last year,” said Mark Loewe, vice president of Ohio racing with Penn National.

“I’m certainly expecting, and would be disappointed if it didn’t happen, [that] our field sizes should go up this year,” Loewe added.

Field size is the number of horses that run in one race.

“The buzz is positive. Everyone really likes the facility. The horsemen thought they did an excellent job of maintaining” the track during last season’s winter, said Tim Hamm, owner of Blazing Meadows Farm in North Jackson, “A lot of them just can’t wait for the place to open up and get back, and that’s saying something for winter racing because it’s outside.”

PURSES UP

Besides Mountaineer’s not racing at the same time, competition could be increased this season at Hollywood Gaming due to increased purse sizes. Those increases already led to the addition of the $200,000 Steel Valley Sprint, a six-furlong dash for 3-year-olds scheduled for Monday, Nov. 23.

That day also features the running of the $75,000 Hollywood Gaming Mahoning Distaff, also a six-furlong dash.

Purses were increased two months into the inaugural season last year, and the gaming floor of Hollywood Gaming added 75 video lottery terminals recently. A portion of VLT revenue goes to the purses for the Ohio tracks.

“Any time there is money, the competition increases, but what a great problem to have,” Hamm said.

That’s because increased purses in Ohio led to increased competition at Thistledown Racino in the Cleveland suburbs. Bob “Railbird” Roberts, a horse handicapper, said purses at Thistledown were higher than purses at Arlington Park in the Chicago suburbs.

“Purses were a lot higher [at Thistledown], and what it did was it attracted guys to ship in from Illinois and Kentucky, and they were grabbing a lot of money,” Roberts said. That meant less money for Ohio horsemen as competition increased in the state due to higher purses.

Loewe said last season ended with an average of $75,000 a day in overnight purses, and this season is starting at $90,000 a day in overnight purses.

BREEDERS’ CUP

The first day of live racing is Friday, Oct. 30, with the first race at 12:45 p.m. The next day – Halloween – features an 11 a.m. “How to Bet” seminar with the Breeders’ Cup race card from Keeneland in Lexington, Ky. The Breeders’ Cup Classic Race is tentatively set for 5:35 p.m. that day with Triple Crown winner American Pharoah running in his last race.

“It’s going to be a very tough race for him,” Loewe said of Pharoah. “Obviously it’s going to be his toughest race because he’s never raced against [older] horses.”

Bettor Sam Corona of Austintown agreed with Loewe and said his last good day of betting was Aug. 29 when he correctly selected Keen Ice to upset American Pharoah in the Travers Stakes at Saratoga Race Course in New York.

Corona said he picked Keen Ice because “he had bad riders on him” in previous losses and he was finally “run right” at Travers. He agreed with Loewe on Pharoah and said he “didn’t like him because he’s running against older horses.”

Hollywood Gaming has planned 17 live racing days in November and December on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays – except for Wednesday, Dec. 30.