By Bill Finley
The Pennsylvania Department of Health has given permission for the state's Thoroughbred and Standardbred tracks to resume racing.
According to Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association President Sal DeBunda, Parx will resume racing June 22. Todd Mostoller, who heads the horsemen's groups at Penn National and Presque Isle Downs, said he hopes that Penn National will start racing again June 19. He said it would take longer to start racing at Presque Isle Downs because there are not any horses currently stabled there.
“We had hoped to open earlier, but, because of the protocols that will be in place, people need to be retrained and they have to buy some new equipment,” DeBunda said. “So, it was impossible to open next week.”
Even though the Pennsylvania tracks will be among the last to reopen after being closed due to the coronavirus, the situation could have been worse. Last month, Governor Tom Wolf said that the tracks would not be allowed to race until the counties in which they are located moved on to the “green phase,” which was when restrictions would be lifted on all businesses in the state. Bucks County, home to Parx, and Dauphin County, home to Penn National, are both “yellow” counties. Wolf also caused problems for the racing and breeding industries when announcing a budget plan in which he proposed to take $204 million in slots revenues away from racing and use the money for college scholarships.
DeBunda said the state is still taking the threat of the coronavirus seriously and that horsemen and backstretch workers will need to be extra careful.
“The people on the backstretch are going to have to do what they are supposed to do,” he said. “Safety inspectors will be making rounds and if they see people not following the protocols they will be reporting it and that could cause them to shut us down again. It's not like we are open, everything is in the clear and people can do whatever they want.”
For trainers like Butch Reid, the news that the Parx would soon be running again couldn't have been more welcome.
“Finally. It's been a long time coming,” Reid said. “The owners have been writing checks and they have been really patient. It starts to wear thin after a while. It's great to see something on the horizon. We are ready to go. The horses are all trained up and the track is in great shape.”
Pennsylvania Equine Coalition Executive Director Pete Peterson said that the key to getting the tracks to reopen was to educate the Wolf administration.
“We had representatives sit down with the Wolf administration and the Pennsylvania Department of Health and explained how there were already people at these tracks on the backside working with the horses and you actually needed fewer people to run in the afternoon,” he said. “It was an educational process, making them aware this could be done safely and in compliance with the CDC guidelines.The Wolf administration was eager to make this work and get us back up and running.”
The first track to reopen in the state will be the Meadows harness track, which will race Monday.
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