Ellis Park begins 29-day meet
Sporting folks in the tri-state area in which Ellis Park is located like to say that summer doesn’t really begin until the horses start racing at “The Pea Patch.”
On Sunday a 29-day summer meet gets under way at Ellis, the 97-year-old track located in the western Kentucky town of Henderson, just across the Indiana line and within hailing distance of the Illinois border.
“It’s an exciting time for us,” said Dan Bork, the longtime racing secretary at Ellis. “Purses have never been better, and we’re looking for the highest quality of racing we’ve ever had. It ought to be a great summer.”
Indeed, many high-profile stables will be represented throughout the meet, which runs through Labor Day, Sept. 2, including Steve Asmussen and Mark Casse, both with on-site divisions. Likewise, all but a few jockeys are holdovers from the Keeneland and Churchill Downs spring meets, further closing what once was a sizable gap in quality from the Kentucky circuit.
Projected per-day purses are an eye-opening $330,000 – more than double the $155,000 average of four years ago – and those new numbers are reflected in the nine-race Sunday opener with three $50,000 maiden races and three allowances ranging from $51,000 to $53,000. (Most purses include sizable bonuses for which only horses registered to the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund are eligible.)
The stakes schedule, moved wholesale to Sundays a couple of years ago, underwent a few upgrades. The traditional centerpiece race, the Grade 3, $125,000 Groupie Doll, is set for Aug. 11, while the five-race Kentucky Downs Preview Day will be held Aug. 4. In all, there will be 11 stakes, with the first coming next Sunday (July 7) with the $75,000 Ellis Park Turf.
Ellis will race primarily Friday-Sunday, with July 4 and closing day being the exceptions. First post is 12:50 p.m. Central, with the exception of three Fridays (July 19, Aug. 9, Aug. 23), when it will be 2:50. There is no racing Aug. 31, opening day of the Kentucky Downs meet.
Ellis Park, founded in 1922, has been sold twice within the last year. Ron Geary, who bought the track from Churchill Downs in 2006, sold it last year to Saratoga Casino and Hospitality, who in turn sold it earlier this month for $11 million to the Laguna Development Corp. of the Native American tribe of Laguna in New Mexico.
Bork said he has been highly encouraged by future plans from the new owners, who reportedly intend to sink as much as $100 million into Ellis, much of it geared toward attracting new clientele to the historical-racing machines that help fund purses.