Mountaineer Park received unanimous approval from the West Virginia Racing Commission (WVRC) Thursday to adjust its season-ending schedule, moving closing day from Dec. 3 to Dec. 9.
“With the passage of recent legislation, monies were provided back to the purse fund,” said Joe Moore, WVRC executive director, during the commission’s Oct. 23 monthly meeting. “Charles Town had previously requested three additional race dates, which the commission approved.”
Mountaineer’s request to switch the Wednesday, Dec. 3 card to Sunday, Dec. 7, and add Monday and Tuesday programs for Dec. 8 and 9 “puts their request in line with Charles Town with the increased purse funding,” Moore explained.
Before the 3-0 vote, WVRC Chairman Paul Espinosa questioned stakeholders about adding dates versus increasing purses.
“We’re not talking a lot of days here, so I’m inclined to support this request,” Espinosa said. “But I see that Mountaineer is struggling like a lot of tracks are right now.”
Espinosa noted that a $4,000 NW2L claiming sprint on Monday, Oct. 20, was reduced to a match race after four scratches left just two starters.
During its most recent four racing days (Sunday through Wednesday), Mountaineer’s eight-race cards featured 40, 47, 45 and 46 starters, respectively.
“Any thought to doing a purse increase as opposed to adding additional days to maybe try to attract a few more horses?” Espinosa asked.
Michael Bish, Mountaineer’s director of racing, explained the track anticipates stronger field sizes in coming weeks.
“We have a bunch of neighboring tracks that are closing. Presque Isle in Erie, Pennsylvania. Belterra Park down by Cincinnati,” Bish said. “I’m seeing a massive uptick in stalls being requested for the last month. We’re bringing in about 75 to 80 horses this weekend. We’re getting a massive amount of Canadian horses from Fort Erie closing up.”
“Our projection for the month of November is looking very strong,” Bish added. “When you look at our last couple of overnights, it’s kind of proved that. We’re getting big 10-horse fields, 12-horse fields. In our opinion, things are going to get a lot better here in this last month.”
The four upcoming programs for Oct. 26-29 have drawn 58, 64, 61 and 71 entries, respectively.
Starting in November, Mountaineer will drop four Wednesdays of racing, as planned at the start of its April-December season, reducing the schedule to three dates per week.
Jami Poole, president of the Mountaineer Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, expressed support for track management’s decisions.
“We used to run a lot of days. Over 50 days we’ve docked annually since I’ve been here,” Poole said. “Our goal as horsemen is to work with management and go to the three days a week most of the time so we can have the big field sizes. And on turf season we can have four days a week because turf will overcome adding a fourth date to the weekly schedule.”
“Our future goal here is to run more days to get back to where we were,” Poole continued. “We did raise all the bottom purses recently. We didn’t raise the top purses.”
Racing into December is crucial, according to Poole, because “90% of these horsemen here, when we close here, have nowhere to go. They don’t go to Mahoning because they don’t get stalls or whatever it is. Our goal is to take care of our horsemen here to get this meet as long as we can get it to go.”
Espinosa acknowledged the perspectives from both track management and horsemen.
“Everybody’s fighting for horses,” Espinosa said. “If we do have a situation where we do have ability to maybe step those purses up a little bit, maybe attract a few more horses, I would think that’s going to help fill those races. But I accept what Mr. Bish outlined and what Poole shared, and certainly I commend you on working together and trying to put together the best program that you can.”
