It’s something that happens rarely at Bangor Raceway, and most New England harness racing tracks in general.

Unfortunately, it happened again Sunday afternoon at Bangor. A bizarre accident early in the sixth race claimed the lives of two Maine standardbred pacers.

“It’s a shame. One of the horses went down right after the first turn and the two trailing drivers behind her were unseated because of it and another driver was nearly unseated, but he somehow managed to hang on,” said Jon Johnson, Penn National Gaming Co. general manager for Bangor operations. “I’m told this horse has a history of what’s called toe sticking, so she had that problem and that’s what made her go down.

“All of a sudden, there are three horses without drivers and one veered toward the inside and cut off another horse. They went down in a heap and a bent shaft from one of the sulkies punctured one of the horses’ lungs… It was just horrible.”

The horse which initially went down was Miss Maya, driven by Randy White.

“Unfortunately, the horse with the punctured lung [Patience and Money, driven by Greg Bowden] died shortly after,” Johnson said. “She got speared by one of the poles on either side of the sulky that the horses are tethered to.

“Patience and Money was put down on the track, I believe, and the other horse with the broken leg and ankle [Miss Maya] was taken to the barn and euthanized,” he added. “Fortunately, none of the drivers were hurt, and that’s amazing.”

“I think the only thing that happened to the drivers was probably just a bruise or two, which was an unbelievable thing,” said Bangor Raceway race secretary Fred Nichols. “They all wear protective vests, which we require them to wear.”

Nichols said the vests are basically the same as Kevlar vests and keep drivers from receiving puncture injuries.”

Johnson, who noted Miss Maya’s quirky habit involved dragging her hoof or digging it into the track, said the accident was not a result of the track surface or conditions. Those have been a source of concern since it was discovered early this spring that the track’s drainage pipes were clogged with mud and thus not allowing the track to dry properly. The problems forced several race-day cancellations.

“No. Not at all,” Johnson said. “First of all, the track is in good shape and the area this occurred in wasn’t in an area where there was any work that needed to be done and it wasn’t dug up at all.”

Drivers are covered by an insurance policy as per an agreement with the Maine Harness Horsemen’s Association. The insurance is taken out and paid for by Bangor Raceway. Horses are the responsibility of owners.

“We have a special accident policy for drivers that we have to pay. The owners take care of insurance on their horses,” said Nichols, who added it was the first time in his 15-year tenure at Bangor Raceway that the track had an accident resulting in two horse fatalities.

“I think we’ve had four accidents involving deaths before this one and, I’m not 100 percent sure, but I know that either three or four were due to medical reasons, like a heart attack,” he explained.

Raceway renovation begins

Bangor Raceway’s three-year, three-part, $5,611,056 renovation plan for the aged paddock and surrounding barns is scheduled to get under way this week.

“We’ve been approved with our demolition permit and Cianbro [Corp.] is picking that up [Tuesday] and will be able to start this week,” said Johnson. “We’re working on the paddock first.”

The bulk of the work on building a new paddock will be done in the offseason.

“We’ll either be getting done in the winter or in the spring of next year,” Johnson said.

The next phase involves razing some of the decrepit barns and building a barn and storage structure in 2009. Phase three involves building a second barn and equipment storage building in 2010.

aneff@bangordailynews.net

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