Panel picks 217 Maine harness race dates for 2001

AUGUSTA – There will be no live harness races at Bangor Raceway during the Bangor State Fair next year, but Bangor Historic Park will operate its 30-day extended harness meet at Bass Park in 2001.

On Wednesday, The Maine Harness Racing Commission held its race date allocation hearings for 2001.

In less than seven hours, under the gavel of its new chairman, Errol F. Addition of Leeds, the five-member panel that governs Maine harness racing completed the annual process. By the time the gavel fell to adjourn, commissioners had meted out 217 live race dates for next year, renewed year-round simulcasting licenses for six off-track betting locations (including Scarborough Downs), and approved next year’s Maine Standardbred Sire Stakes schedule. And they did it in record time without much rancor.

However, the MHRC deliberations did not include the three race days requested by the city of Bangor to re-institute harness racing as an adjunct to its 2001 Bangor State Fair. Mike Dyer, general manager of the Bass Park Complex, submitted the racing request, in accordance with the commission’s rules, to conduct three days of harness racing at the beginning of the 10-day Bangor State Fair next year. The last harness races at the Bangor State Fair were in 1992.

Dyer told commissioners there was no guarantee that even if the race dates were granted to Bangor that they would be raced.

“Everything at the race track has to be approved by the Bass Park Board and, eventually, the Bangor City Council. But in order to even consider racing, we must first have the commission issue a license to operate racing. That’s the first step in the process,” Dyer said. He indicated it was not Bangor’s intention to jeopardize any other agricultural fair.

“We do not want to negatively impact on any other racing venue,” Dyer said.

Rep. Richard Duncan of Presque Isle, who is also director of racing at Northern Maine Fair, told commissioners that if Bangor were granted three days of racing against Presque Isle, it would devastate the six-day fair racing program at NMF.

“We depend on Bangor for horses each year,” said Duncan. “For the past three years, we have been racing our fair week unopposed, after having head-to-head racing against Topsham Fair for several years, and everything has run much smoother – our fair, our racing, everything. If Bangor’s request is granted, we just couldn’t race in 2001 and harness racing has been in Presque Isle for 140 years.”

Race commissioner Norman Trask, also from Presque Isle, asked Dyer if the dates he requested were some of the same dates that Northern Maine Fair in Presque Isle were racing. Dyer agreed that Bangor and Presque Isle would be racing head-to-head on two of the three requested days.

“Wouldn’t that have a detrimental affect on both facilities,” Trask asked? Dyer agreed it probably would.

Rep. Howard Chick of East Lebanon, who is also president of the Maine Agricultural Fair Associaton, said his organization also opposed the commission’s granting race dates to Bangor that would put the two fairs on a collision course in 2001. Chick said his objection was based on two facts – the overlapping of racing dates and that both tracks would be competiting for the same horse supply.

In the end, and in the spirit of compromise, Dyer said he would withdraw the city’s request for three race days in 2001 during Bangor State Fair. He suggested that, sometime next year, all parties involved in the race date controversy should sit down and work out an agreeable and workable solution for the 2002 racing season.

The only other issue that made waves at the otherwise calm date hearing process came from Dr. Dennis Foss, chairman of the Maine Breeders Stakes Colt Advisory Board. Foss told commissioners that in the 2001 stakes schedule, his organization would exclude Windsor Fair from hosting all 2- and 3-year-old divisions of the Maine Sire Stakes. Foss said the action was taken by his board because of unacceptable problems stakes participants encountered at Windsor Fair this year.

Dan Wilson, director of racing at Windsor Fair, told Foss and the commissioners that he was not aware of any problem with stake horses until after the fact. Wilson said he regretted any problems the stakes people may have encountered at Windsor and that he wasn’t very happy about losing the stakes races next season, but understood. Wilson also said any existing problems would be addressed by the fair’s board of directors during the offseason and rectified before the start of the 2002 racing season. All other racing fairs indicated they would like to host the Maine Sire Stakes again next year.