Fort Erie opens meet with optimism on field sizes

Fort Erie Race Track will kick off its 121st season of live racing Tuesday with a nine-race card that attracted 80 entries.

Fort Erie will run a 40-day meet once again in 2018, racing every Tuesday, with Sunday racing beginning June 10. Sunday cards have a 1:20 p.m. first post, while Tuesday cards start at 4:20 p.m. until Sept. 4, when first post will be 1:20 through closing day, Oct. 16.

The highlight of the meet will be the 83rd running of the $500,000 Prince of Wales Stakes. The second jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown will be run over 1 3/16 miles on dirt July 24.

Fort Erie is looking to make a number of improvements to the guest experience this season, including free wifi and a new program called Fast Bet Mobile, which will be active in June and allow fans to place wagers on their phones.

“We’re trying to modernize as much as we can with the resources we have,” said Tom Valiquette, Fort Erie’s chief operating officer and chief financial officer. “We’ll bring in Fast Bet, where people can bet from their phones ontrack. It will help with wagering but also with the younger demographic that are used to doing everything on their phone.”

Despite a significant decrease in field size last year, track officials are optimistic for 2018, in part because of Woodbine’s decision to eliminate a controversial shipping policy, which now will provide more opportunities for trainers stabled at Woodbine to ship into Fort Erie.

“Without that shipping policy now, they’re going to be free to ship down here, which is a big improvement over what it was last year. That should help immensely,” Valiquette said.

Valiquette added that the horse population at Fort Erie is up 10 percent this year. That, combined with more ship-ins from Woodbine, led to an average of 8.9 entries per race for the opening-day card, compared with 7.25 entries per race for opening day in 2017.

Valiquette said that despite the big fields for opening day, horse supply still will be a challenge.

“Obviously, the whole horse-supply issue and the whole state of racing is a bit of an issue, but we’re confident we should be in good shape this year,” he said.

Fort Erie also has made improvements to its turf course this season. The track has put a greater emphasis on turf racing in the past two years, running 93 turf races last year and 97 in 2016. In 2015, 45 turf races were run. Three of the nine races on the opening-day card are slated for turf.

“Our turf course is looking great,” Valiquette said. “We should be in good shape moving forward.”

:: Save 20% on PPs, digital paper subscriptions, and more with DRF's Memorial Day sale!