Fair Grounds: Wagering canceled on two Friday races due to tote glitch

The third and fourth races on Friday at Fair Grounds were run for purse money because of a failure in the totalizator system.

“There was a problem with the software in the tote system that displays the odds,” Eric Halstrom, Fair Grounds vice president and general manager for racing, said of the reason for the tote delay. “They lost that and it took them a while to get it back.”

The tote provider at Fair Grounds is Amtote.

The system went down while the horses were on the track for Friday’s third race, and the decision was made to run that race for purse-money only and refund all wagers placed on the race. Horses for race 4 were beginning to walk from the backstretch to the paddock when the problem occurred, Halstrom said, and Fair Grounds felt obligated to let those horses remain on schedule rather than waiting to see if the problem could be resolved.

“There was nothing we could do about the third and fourth,” Halstrom said.

Bets placed directly on races 3 and 4 were refunded. Multi-race wagers that began on races 1 and 2 and included races 3 and 4 paid on “all” in the two races that were run for purse money only.