Don’t get Jackson Wittup wrong. The Director of Racing at Fraser Downs isn’t complaining
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But he most certainly is faced with a problem that his peers in the harness racing industry would welcome.
In short, there are currently more horses available than there are races and Wittup is looking forward to Oct. 15 when the Fraser Downs schedule expands to three cards a week.
“Going three times a week will certainly relieve some pressure,” Wittup says. “Right now we just can’t satisfy everybody.”
Both 7:30 p.m. cards tonight (Sept. 25) and Saturday (Sept. 26) have 13 races on their agenda with the maximum nine starters in all but three of them. Beginning Oct. 15 there will be three weeks of Thursday night racing (start times 6:00 p.m.) to complement the regular Friday/Saturday evening cards.
Then through the winter months of November, December, January, February and March there will be Friday/Saturday/Sunday dates with the matinee Sundays starting at 1:15 p.m.
“At the moment we have 525 stalls filled at Fraser and another 125 occupied at two nearby training centres,” Wittup says. “It’s great for the industry.”
Wittup looks forward to next month when he will be able to accommodate and satisfy more of the hard-working horse people itching to get in on the Fraser Downs action.
(Fraser Downs)