Split seasons a matter of making accommodation
In a perfect racing world, Suffolk Downs management would like to see the return of a thoroughbred circuit between the East Boston oval and Rockingham Park in Salem, N.H., only on a smaller scale. However, current realities would appear to make that impossible.
Suffolk and Rock had long joined in a year-round circuit, with Rock running June-September and Suffolk running on both sides of the Rock meeting, but that ended when Rock switched to harness racing last year. Suffolk, unable to afford purses for a yearlong meet and weary of the expense and bother of winter racing, responded by reducing to a May-November meet. The law in Massachusetts was subsequently changed to call for 1,100 races per meeting in order to hold simulcasting rights, as opposed to 150 dates. For 2005, Suffolk has applied for 117 dates to run its allotment of races.
To Suffolk, the ideal schedule would be 1,000 races over 100 dates, 50 in the spring/early summer and 50 in the fall, with Rock running 30 or 40 dates in mid-summer. Rock, which is committed to standardbred racing through 2006, showed a renewed interest in thoroughbred racing. Working in cooperation with Suffolk and its racing office, which drew the races, the Granite State track hosted three turf contests Sept. 5, a dark day at Suffolk. However, with a harness meet planned for early May through Labor Day weekend in 2005, a revival of flat racing beyond the occasional turf race is unlikely.
"The difficulty becomes when to put on the harness meeting," Rock vice president Ed Callahan said yesterday. "It would be difficult to try to break that up. Our harness meet works in the summer, when Freehold [in New Jersey] is not running, and Pompano [in Florida] is running a reduced schedule. Then the Meadowlands closes down in August. It would be difficult to pick another time to work with the harness people. I don't think it's doable."
The three grass races Sept. 5, which followed a full card of harness racing, was well received. It is impossible to switch the main track back and forth from a harness surface to a thoroughbred surface during the same meeting, but if Rock can run some events over its turf course on Sundays and/or Fridays, another dark day at Suffolk, it will gladly do so.
"On Sept. 5, everything went quite well," said Callahan. "The patrons enjoyed it and horsemen enjoyed it. If something like it can be done next year, we've got to look at it. First, we'll see what the horse population at Suffolk looks like next summer. Maybe we can get in Friday and Sunday racing on the grass, but we won't know about the horse population until Suffolk opens [May 2]. If the races at Suffolk are not filled out, we're not going to do anything to hurt the program down there.
"A key is that Pennsylvania is set to get some slots in 2005. Chances are, with the increased purses, the horses that go down there might not come back to Suffolk. The same might be true in harness racing. We get horses from Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey. Whether they'll come back here remains to be seen. I'll know better as we get closer to the time.
"The problem that we have is that you can't train here. There's no dirt track down [the harness track is covered by stonedust], and you can't train on the turf course [training cuts it up]. We're at the mercy of Suffolk. They need more races on less days to make it work. If we take four, six, eight races a week from them, we could affect their program."
As at Suffolk, Rock management lives in the hope that slot machines will arrive one day. The plan is to run harness racing through 2006, while exploring development opportunities on the property. If the slots do come, Rock has indicated it would like to expand racing and conduct a thoroughbred meet and a standardbred meet.
"I anticipate there will be a video gaming bill filed in January or February," said Callahan. "Where it goes, who knows? There has been a bill filed for the last 10 years and it hasn't passed."
