Beulah Park has pick five carryover on opening day

GROVE CITY, Ohio – Beulah Park opens for the 88th year Monday with a carryover in its 50-cent pick five. The 70-day Beulah season will run through Kentucky Derby Day, May 5.

There is a carryover of over $8,275 coming into the Monday’s card. Management received permission from the Ohio Racing Commission to keep the carryover alive rather than to distribute it on Dec. 21, closing day of the fall/winter meet.

The pick 5 is always the last five races on the Beulah card and begins with race 5 on Monday. Beulah Park has a 15 percent takeout for all pick 3, pick 4, and pick 5 wagers.

During the break between meets, maintenance was done to the racing surface, but the track needed much less work this year than usual.

“The track was totally resurfaced over the summer and so we didn’t need to put a bunch of material on as in past years,” said racing secretary Ed Vomacka.

Horsemen were pleased with the new surface in the fall, but the large amounts of rain that fell during the meet did cause some problems late in the year.

“There were a few minor things that needed to be addressed, and they were,” Vomacka said. “You can’t control what Mother Nature sends you. With the amount of rain we had, it was still in great shape and now everybody is happy with it. I haven’t heard any complaints.”

A short stakes schedule for the meet is expected to be approved later this month by the racing commission and will remain the same as last spring, according to Vomacka. Beulah will have the H.B. Noonan and Royal North for 3-year-old Ohio-breds and the Babst/Palacios for older Ohio-bred horses, all three events will have purses of $50,000.

Trainer Joe Woodard is back to defend his training title from the fall, as is leading rider Amanda Tamburello. The duo teams up with the morning-line favorites in the sixth and ninth race of the pick 5 sequence. Woodard and Tamburello also have the 5-2 second choice in the seventh.

With the smallest field in the pick 5 being the 10-horse sixth race, and horses shipping in from Hawthorne, Mountaineer Park, and Mount Pleasant Meadows, and all of the local horses coming off a minimum 2 1/2-week layoff, the chance of another carryover is possibile.

Other top trainers returning are Doug Cowans, Charlie Lawson, Paul Garcia, Mike Rone, and Ivan Vazquez. The jockey colony will remain basically the same with Edgar Paucar, Sergio Figueroa, Rafael Hernandez, and Cesar Camaque competing.