Bangor Historic Track posts strong finish with new events

Despite a slow, weather-affected start which had a negative impact on the first two racing weekends back in late May, Bangor Raceway general manager Fred Nichols says there is a lot to smile about regarding Bangor Historic Track’s 122nd racing season.

“I think after the miserable, monsoon-like weather we had early on, we had a lot to be happy about,” Nichols said. “We had a lot of new events this year and a lot of renewed interest in the sport.”

The new events included the Harness Horse Youth Foundation program for children, an NCAA Tournament-style pool for local racing fans, and the C.K. Billings Amateur Drivers Association Series races.

The 2005 handle for live racing and exported Bangor Raceway races (via OTB) comes in at $920,066 – $712,023 for all Bangor on-track betting and $208,043 for export (simulcasting of Bangor races to other tracks) betting. The total is down slightly from 2004’s total $1,143,322 (up 23 percent from 2003).

“I think our export was down because our biggest exporter was Miller’s OTB and that was shut down awhile while they worked on moving it over here,” Nichols explained. “The live handle was down, I think, due to the weather, which kept some people away and limited the number of available horses because they couldn’t train in the bad weather.”

As for attendance, Nichols has no turnstile count or official attendance figure to go by since admission to the track is free, but he estimates it was virtually the same as 2004 despite an unusually light turnout for the first two weeks of the season.

“Yeah, well we really shot up at the end and finished strong,” Nichols said. “The only thing I can really go by is [racing] program sales and those were pretty consistent last year with about 800 people a day. I don’t think there was really any change this year.”

Banner week for Union

The numbers are up almost across the board for Union Fair’s 2005 harness racing week.

Final figures won’t be available until late Saturday, but the total handles for the races on Sunday ($40,766), Monday ($29,250), Tuesday ($36,598), Wednesday ($30,224), and Thursday ($34,405) have all seen an increase over last year’s corresponding race days.

Only Friday’s total of $29,639 was down from last year’s ($31,139), but much of that blame lies with the scratching of two horses in a six-horse race. That made it impossible for the track to offer trifecta and show betting.

Clerk of course Pam Merrill says good weather and good numbers at the fair have contributed to the increase at the betting windows.

The action will finish with an eight-race Saturday program (2 p.m. post time) and feature one of the largest purses of the week: $2,500 in the six-horse feature seventh race.

And the winner is…

William Hartt of Bangor and Lisa Rossignol of Milford are the last two standing in Bangor Raceway’s inaugural handicapping contest.

That means the pacing prognosticators have won a free trip to Penn National’s resort at Hollywood Casino near Memphis, Tenn., for four days and three nights next spring.

Hartt and Rossignol correctly picked more races involving simulcast action from The Meadowlands complex in East Rutherford, N.J., to outscore fellow semifinalists Steve Butler of Bangor and Anita Stephens of Alton in the last round held three weeks ago.

An original field of 64 entrants competed in the free contest designed to celebrate the opening of Bangor Raceway’s off-track betting facility. Entrants, who picked the top three horses in each of 10 races each round, were matched one-on-one randomly and earned points based on correct picks. Those with the higher scores moved on to the next round.

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or at aneff@bangordailynews.net