Colonial Downs to race Monday through Wednesday in 2021
Colonial Downs in New Kent, Va., will race on a Monday-through-Wednesday schedule this year with a mid-afternoon first post time in order to exploit a scarcity of simulcast signals at that time and to cooperate with its regional neighbor to the north, Maryland, according to officials of the track.
Colonial, which shifted to the Monday-through-Wednesday schedule last year in a meet that was ultimately canceled after just six live race dates due to COVID positives at the track, will run its early-week cards starting at 1:45 p.m. Eastern every day. Last year, its first post was 5:30.
The Monday-Wednesday schedule will put Colonial in front of more eyes in the simulcast market while avoiding live-racing overlaps with Laurel Park in Maryland, which has been running on a Friday-Sunday schedule this year, according to Jill Byrne, the track’s vice president of racing. In addition, the 1:45 post time will place Colonial’s races between races held at Saratoga on Wednesday.
“We’re trying to make it as convenient as possible on our horsemen and for bettors,” Byrne said.
The meet is scheduled to start on July 19 and run through Sept. 1, for a total of 21 days. Colonial expects to average $500,000 a day in purse distribution, an amount bolstered with subsidies from electronic gambling devices operated by the track’s ownership group.
During the pandemic, many racetracks could not allow spectators to attend, which led several middle-tier tracks to experiment with racing schedule changes in order to capitalize on gaps in the simulcast market. Byrne says that she expects a limited number of spectators to be able to attend the races this year, and the track has announced that “premium tickets” would go on sale March 15. General admission, with limitations, will be free, Byrne said.
“It will be nice to get some fans back at the track, in whatever numbers we can,” Byrne said. She said that attendance limitations would depend on the state government’s guidance at the time.