Published:
February 4, 2009 10:55 am EST
Pompano Park Race Track will close for the summer, ending a decade of year-round harness racing
.
The summer closure begins May 16. The park will reopen in mid-September.
Track managers say horse owners and workers will have to temporarily vacate the 850-stall barn area and dormitories.
According to state records, revenue at the track and its casino complex is down more than 20 per cent. Race attendance has been dropping for years.
(Associated Press)
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I live in Ohio and was down
I live in Ohio and was down in Florida for vacation the last week of January. I attended the races a couple nights down there at Pompano Park and had a ball. I came back to Toledo and was telling all my friends here and in Canada that I couldn't believe how many people were at the track when I was there. I guess appearances are deceiving. I wanted to send a few postcards to my harness friends but none available at the track, but we were told to check the gift shop at the casino, so my wife and I took a stroll there. The casino was packed. We didn't spend a nickel gambling in there, basically because of the head-banger music they had blasting. But again, I guess appearances are deceiving. It looked as if they were rolling in the dough the night we went thru there.Casino seemed to be well maintained. Too bad not much attention was being paid to the track as well
The Isle Casino Management
The Isle Casino Management has made marginal attrempts to promote harness racing at pompano sence the horsemen and woman worked to get the slot legislation passed for them. On the other hand they have closed the Dinning room and Four floor box seat area in the main grandstand, both were areas that trainers and owners could entertain friends and anyone that might be interested in getting into the standardbred industry, leaving no place to bring these people except their casino. Also they have not been willing to enter into a contract with the horsemen, they have not been interested in talking about anything that would give the horsemen a fair share of the slots revenue. They say that purses have doubled sence slots, but that is not true. We raced for about $8,000,000 before slots and at todays rate if we race 140 days as they propose we would race for about $9,100,000, this doesn't look like a double. This change will also cripple the sire stakes program as Florida breds will not be able race until October or November which will end the interest in purchasing a Florida Yearling with the added expense of traing them an addition 4 or 5 months before they race.