Aug
19
Another one bites the dust…..
by Barry Roos
Published: August 19, 2008 23 Comments
Email This Post
Bay Meadows quietly became another racing ghost this week after 7 decades. Then I read how River Downs isn’t getting Thoroughbred dates in 2009 nor is Beulah. While none of these tracks are to be compared to Saratoga or Del Mar, with each track closing we lose a little bit more. It made me think about all the tracks which have closed in my lifetime of 45 years. (at least to Thoroughbreds)
Here are the tracks that come to mind:
- Ak-Sar-Ben
- Balmoral
- Bay Meadows
- Birmingham
- Bowie
- Brockton Fair
- Detroit Race Course
- Garden State
- Great Barrington
- Great Lakes Downs
- Green Mountain
- Greenwood
- Hazel Park
- Hialeah
- Marshfield Fair
- Narragansett
- Northhampton
- Rockingham Park
- Sportsman’s Park
- Tropical Park
I am sure there are many more I haven’t mentioned. Please let me know. The sad part is many more tracks are in danger should their legislatures not wake up. We could lose Pimlico, Suffolk and others within a few years which would be an unbelievable shame.
Comments
Links
- HorseRacingGroup.com - a LinkedIn Networking Group
- James McMullen Racing - Racehorse Trainer
- Roos Throrougbred Services - Thoroughbred Racing Consultant
- RooSites Web Development - Web Design, Development & Management
- UWriteSports.com - Where everyone can be a sports writer
- Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance (TBA)
Lincoln RI
Hopefully, one day someone will come up with creative solutions to attract new fans and perserve and bring back these endangered tracks. Such as engaging new fans in the perserving various aspects of these establishments for instance; like a national 4H science project with San Diego Zoo to teach kids about the Flamingos at Hileah Park Race Track and how they are providing the eggs for most of the North Amercian Zoo’s Nationaly OR how the Rulers of Dubai and biggest investos and owners in our racing industry are building a new racetrack ‘Maydan ‘due to open in 2010 in Dubai , that has their very own flock of flamingos living bang in the middle of their construction site and the efforts to perserve and honor this magestical feathered friend of our horses in our shrinking global village!
http://www.savetheflamingos.org
Being that I live 10 minutes from River Downs, and have spent many a summer afternoon there, I’m sad to see them shutting down live racing.
Although the racing is decidedly low end, they put on a good show.
Liberty Bell was a great thoroughbred / harness track that predated Keystone (near Philadelphia Park), Trinity Meadows near Weatherford TX and Jefferson Downs near Metairie LA are the first three that come to mind…
Longacres in Washington State is another. Of course, with some track closures another opens..but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. There isn’t any history associated with the news tracks. In Michigan, Saginaw Raceway (harness) shut down a couple of years ago, and most of the tracks in this state are struggling to stay open. Within the last few years, all of the local fairs have yanked harness racing and replaced it with lawnmower racing or some other nonsense, and many others throughout the state have as well. I have also heard Portland Meadows is struggling. It’s safe to say 90% of American horse racing facilities have an unsure future.
- Longacres
- Yakima Meadows
- Playfair
- Centennial
- Coeur d’Alene
- Several of the Montana tracks
- Liberty Bell
washington park chicago il south suburbs
The Woodlands in Kansas City (a horse and greyhound track)will not be holding their horse racing meet this year and the track is scheduled to close completely on August 24. There is still a slight chance that it may reopen next year if the slot situation can be worked out.
http://www.woodlandskc.com/Press_Release.htm#one
Here are a few more… Bel Air, Marlborough, Cumberland, Hagerstown, Havre de Grace and Birmingham
Raceway Park in Toledo Ohio, they still have harness racing but stopped thoroughbred racing about 40 years ago
I don’t believe that the closing of a racetrack is necessarily a bad event for horse racing. Sportsman’s Park was a cold, dreary place when racing was held in February and March. The races moved just next door to Hawthorne. No one will mourn for Sportsman’s Park. There are other names that are in the same boat. Then there are the cases of Ak-sar-ben and Hialeah where the history and circumstances make for a sad day in racing when they shut down. There is too much racing still in North America and this list reflects that.
Stampede Park in Calgary will no longer have Thoroughbred racing…..which is a good thing…….they did such an inept job that it’s better for horse racing that they shutdown.
You missed Commodore Downs in Erie, Pa. … It was a dumb, as is Beaulah Park. … Competition for the gambling dollar requires the same degree of excellence as in any other business. … If the public doesn’t buy your product, you are gone.
Another track to close was Atlantic City Racetrack in New Jersey. My parents used to go and I still have a program pencil from there.
Is Brandywine Harness Track outside of Philadelphia still open?
…but really, has Beulah actually had Thoroughbred racing for, say, the past 10 years? There was a horse in an allowance there that was giving kids rides at the Delaware County Fair earlier in the week.
Wow its like I took a bullet reading this blog. Living in mass. The fairs would be going full blast.Marshfield fair this week,labor day Northampton, then on to great barrington and back a few years it was berkshire fair after that,I am only 50 years old,but boy I do miss all of that racing
on the bullrings.Most of the passing of these
places had to do with local political crap and
not the people who raced or the fans who would
watch. I still run into people from these tracks and the talk goes maybe someday but
we all know someday will never come back.
Marlboro,MD Hagerstown,MD Pocono Downs, Foxboro Downs, Commodore Downs Are among some that I recall same age as you……..
Brandywine bit the dust years ago..It’s now the site of a mall. Roosevelt Raceway in Westbury ,NY was the site of the first ever nightime harness race program, closed in the early 90’s..Ironically it’s right next to a mall. BTW ,acoording to my best knowledge of NJ simulcasting Regs, a race track that has simulcast wagering must stage a meet of a mininmu amount of dates. I believe AC runs 5 race programs each year
I disagree with what Tim Peterson said about Sportsman’s Park. Hey Tim, all of Chicago is cold and dreary in February and March! For me, it’s where I caught the racing bug. I felt comfortable being there. Hawthorne is big and plain, Maywood is small and smokey and Arlington is too businesslike for me. Balmoral comes close to being like Sportsman’s. Even when they expanded it to 7/8 miles it brought forth good thoroughbred and harness racing. A boneheaded business decision brought about the demise of my favorite harness track. Now it’s going to be a mall. My condolences to Stormy Bidwill of the National Jockey Club on the loss because of his Knuckleheaded son!
As a young boy who wathched his first horse race at Great Barrington Fair, and later as a teenager who got his first job on the rscetrack at Northampton Fair,(worked for Joe Cesarini and “the king of the fairs” Carlos Figueroa), and as a young man winning his first race as a trainer at Marshfeild Fair, the passing of the fair circuit in New England was a very sad event. I beleive the passing of the fairs and racetracks like them has had a very negative impact on the game we love. I refer to them as grass roots horse racing, where kids (our future fan base got to see horse racing) without going to a major venue. The fairs will never come back, but a day dosen’t go by that I don’t think about them,and the fun I had, and the things I learned. I will be forever grateful to the Mass Fairs.
In Ohio we lost Ascot Park and Randall Park in 1971.
Centennial Race Course near Denver, closed 1983; Cahokia Downs, Illinois, near Fairmount park; La Mesa Park, New Mexico; Shenandoah Downs, WV (near Charles Town); Yakima Meadows, WA; Dover Downs, Delaware.
The track with nine lives: Atlantic City! Left for dead many times, it lives on, and will host a 6-day all turf meet in Spring 2009. This place ought to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places – it’s a unique track, built out of bricks with the best turf course in America. It is most worthy of preservation. If you can make it once, please come!
Miles Park in Louisville (you”ll go miles for better racing) later renamed Commonwealth Racecourse is another that comes to mind. Hard to imagine that the so-called leaders in Thoroughbred racing don’t find this disturbing. I guess that’s why racing finds itself in such a predicament. NO LEADERSHIP!