Fort Erie opens meet Tuesday without spectators or Woodbine horses

Fort Erie launches its 2020 meet on Tuesday with an eight-race card and with no Woodbine horses because they are not allowed to leave Woodbine due to an equine herpesvirus outbreak on the backstretch there.

Fort Erie changed its schedule this season, switching from Sundays and Tuesdays to Mondays and Tuesdays. First post is of 1:20 p.m. for the meet, which closes Oct. 13. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the grandstand will be empty during racing for the first time in the track’s 123-year history.

“Since we will be required to race without fans to start out the year, we decided to move live racing to Monday and Tuesday at 1:20 p.m. in order to reduce our competition in the simulcast market and maximize our revenue from simulcast wagering,” said Tom Valiquette, the chief operating and financial officer of the Fort Erie Live Racing Consortium, which owns the track.

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Fort Erie’s signature race, the $400,000 Prince of Wales Stakes, the middle leg of the Canadian Triple Crown, has been moved from it’s original date of July 21 to Sept. 29 to keep the series in its regular sequence. The 1 3/16- mile event for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds will follow the $1 million Queen’s Plate, to be run Sept. 1,2 and preceeds the $400,000 Breeders’ Stakes Oct. 24. Both of those events will be run at Woodbine.

“With or without fans, the Prince of Wales Stakes and the Canadian Triple Crown are important to Canadian Thoroughbred racing, and we are committed to continuing this historic tradition this year, despite current challenges,” Valiquette said.

Antonietta Culic, Fort Erie’s manager of marketing and media relations, said the local horse population is above par for this time of year.

“Currently we have 290 horses, up from about 240 at this time last year,” Culic said.

Krista Carignan was the meet’s leading rider for the second year in a row in 2019, with 51 wins. Melanie Pinto ranked second in the 2019 jockey standings with 41 wins, and was followed by Helen Vanek, Kirk Johnson, and Pierre Mailhot.

The 2019 leading trainer was John Simms, and Six Brothers Stable was the leading owner.

Simms sends out Sent From Heaven in the second race Tuesday. He will also saddle Fleck in the featured seventh, a first-level allowance with a $12,500-$12,000 claiming option which lured six others.

Woodbine horses could be available for the second week of the meet, June 8-9, according to Ray Kahnert, the senior advisor of communications for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.