Harness racing competition begins Saturday at Bangor Raceway – not for purse money, but against the clock. The track is ready, the officials are in place, the timer is working – it’s qualifying time.

Maine law mandates that if a horse has not raced for at least 45 days, he/she must re-qualify and meet the track’s standards in order to return to racing competition. In eastern Maine, the annual spring ritual of qualifying horses for racing begins at Bangor Raceway. The law says two sessions must be held before the opening of Bangor’s extended race meet.

Horses from Aroostook, Washington, Hancock and Somerset counties, as well as the Canadian provinces, must successfully negotiate the turns and straightaways at Bangor’s half-mile track on gait in the alloted time to qualify for the Bangor race meet that runs through July 25.

Equally important, qualifying also provides a litmus test of the trainer’s ability to get his horse to the races, especially the young horses that have never paced a competitive hoof on a track. It all begins at 11 a.m. Saturday. Qualifying times are: 2:12 for pacers and 2:14 for trotters with a four-second allowance for 2-year-old horses and two additional seconds for 3-year-old youngsters.

A second qualifying session is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, and qualifiers who equal or better the track standard are eligible for the declaration box for opening day.

While the Bangor track has almost completed its plans for its summer extended meet, another track that had a series of extended meet race days has called it quits for this year. The County Raceway in Presque Isle fell victim to the trickle-down theory that says the smallest and weakest go first. County’s demise was caused, in part, by the opening of the new Massachusetts harness track, Plainridge Racecourse, a dwindling horse supply and finances.

The County will not race its seven days of extended meet racing this year, which was scheduled to begin on Friday, June 11.

“We’re just not going this year,” Joy Drost, president of County, said Wednesday. Drost said the Aroostook racing organization had applied for 1999 race dates in case something happened across the border in Canada. Aroostook racing and Bangor racing both rely heavily on Canadian horses and drivers. “We thought if either Fredericton or Saint John [race tracks] shut down for some reason, we would have our dates and be able to go,” Drost said. “That’s the way we looked at it when we submitted our race date application to the racing commission last winter.”

Drost said the horse situation in Aroostook County is worse than it was last year. “I don’t know if I could count 10 overnighters,” she said. Drost said there are plenty of young Maine Sire Stakes colts in Aroostook County and an overabundance of youngsters at the two neighboring Canadian tracks getting ready for the lucrative Atlantic Sire Stakes. “In Fredericton, they probably have 100 horses on the grounds, and 60 are stakes horses. Everybody has stakes horses and that hurts little tracks like ours.”

In assessing the demise of Aroostook extended meet racing for this year, Drost concluded, “We were hoping for a miracle and it just didn’t happen. We’ll have to wait for racing at the Northern Maine Fair.”

PACING BITS – There are a number of harness racing bills currently making their way through the legislative process. Some will make it, some will die in committee and others will be carried over to the next legislative session.

One of the most controversial bills is LD 1837, An Act to Amend the Harness Racing Laws, presented by Rep. Harry True of Fryeburg. The original legislative document deals with such issues as exclusive bargaining agent elections, compulsory binding arbitration to resolve disputes between exclusive bargaining agents and commercial racetracks.

Additionally, according to the bill’s summary, it also provides for auditing procedures enabling the exclusive bargaining agents and the Maine Harness Racing Commission to have the purse trust account audited. The bill also amends the definition of commercial race track and incorporates a retroactivity clause back to June 17, 1993, when the language of the present statute was adopted.

Two sections of the bill have been rewritten. The first lowers the racing threshold and makes more horsemen eligibile for voting in the process to elect an exclusive bargaining agent. The second rewrite addresses population, a criteria in licensing a commercial track.

Maine has three racing segments established by statutes – Scarborough Downs, Bangor Raceway and other meets (agricultural fairs and extended meets). Last week, LD 1837 came out of committee with the unanimous recommendation of “ought to pass.” The amended and revised version heads back to the state printing office for a reprint and then to the Legislature.