In less than a month, Bangor Raceway opens the 2000 harness racing season in eastern and northern Maine on May 14.

During the past two racing seasons, Bangor has struggled with severe horse shortages, particularly during the startup of its extended meet. Fred Nichols, raceway manager, said this week his investor group will take a “more cautious approach” with this year’s 29 days of harness racing at Bangor’s historic Bass Park.

“For the last two years, we’ve struggled just to maintain adequate racing programs, but this year, we have received a few more inquiries from Maritime horsemen and we are encouraged by that,” Nichols said.

Under an agreement between the provincial government and Atlantic Lotto, harness tracks in most Canadian provinces have been subsidized with funds generated by Atlantic Lotto from its video lottery machine operations.

This year, however, the province of New Brunswick has severed all ties with Atlantic Lotto, ending the subsidies to that province’s harness race tracks. More Canadian stables are looking toward Bangor Raceway for additional racing opportunities.

The Bangor racing office opens May 1 with qualifiers scheduled at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 6, and 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, May 10. Phone numbers for the racing office are 941-0872 and 941-0874. Ken Ronco, former executive secretary of the Maine Harness Horsemen’s Association and a former presiding judge, dons the race secretary’s hat for the Bangor race meet this year.

During May, Bangor’s racing format is Sunday and Wednesday. In June, the track will add Friday racing. Post times are: 7:15 p.m. weekdays and 1:30 p.m. Sunday. Bangor will also race on Tuesday, July 4, with a special 6:15 p.m. post time.

“We certainly would like to add another day,” Nichols said, “but everything depends on having an adequate horse supply to fill the events.” Nichols says he plans 10 dashes each weeknight and up to 12 on Sunday. Bangor races will be simulcast into all of Maine’s off-track betting locations.

Veterans hired to complete Bangor’s officiating crew are: Walter McIntire, presiding judge; Jerry Hirsch and Frank Hall Jr., associate judges; Roger Smith Jr., race starter and patrol judge; and James Findley, mutuels director (after more than 50 years as mutuel director and program director, George and Zilla Witman, have retired).

Bangor will have two announcers this year. Bill Ellis, former Foxboro announcer who announced at Bangor last year (from atop the grandstand, on the grandstand apron and in the paddock area), returns, along with neophyte Paul Brown, current race secretary at Exhibition Park Raceway in Saint John, New Brunswick. Brown also served as race secretary in Bangor for two years and previous to that raced his stable at Bangor.

Simonds heads promotion board

Rick Simonds, athletic director and men’s basketball coach at St. Joseph’s College in Standish for 20 years, has been named the new executive director of the Maine Harness Racing Promotion Board. Simonds is also editor of the harness publication, Mane-ly News, and replaces the late Tom Kole of Milo, who died last year.

D’Alessandro recuperating

Driver-trainer-owner Eugene “Geno” D’Alessandro of Portland was involved in a bad accident on the track at Scarborough Downs on March 26 when his pacer, Trustys Last Dream, fell coming out of the first turn. After a couple of close calls which had medics using the “paddles” on Geno’s heart, D’Alessandro ended up in the intensive care unit at Maine Medical in Portland with a punctured lung, broken ribs, broken collar bone, and multiple bumps and bruises.

Unlike driver John Campbell, the sport’s leading money winner who went down in a training accident at The Meadowlands two weeks ago and returns to driving tonight, D’Alessandro has recently been released from the hospital and has a lot of recuperation ahead. We wish him a speedy recovery. Lee Fitch is driving his stable of horses.

Plainridge open

Plainridge Racecourse in Plainfield, Mass., re-opened Monday with a pair of Maine men as top officials – Paul Verette, former race secretary at Scarborough Downs, is the race secretary, and Dana Delisle, associate judge at Bangor Raceway and presiding judge at several Maine fair tracks last year, is the presiding judge.

Gary T. Pointkowski is the president of Plainridge; Joe Hartmann is general manager; and, after an accident on the track last fall, former harness driver Steve O’Toole gave up his driving chores and has moved into the assistant general manager’s position.

Plainridge has scheduled live harness racing three days a week through Nov. 11 and 365 simulcast days in 2000. Race days are Mondays, Tuesdays, and Saturdays at 4 p.m., and the live races will be simulcast into all Maine OTB parlors.