Goldfinch Stakes highlight of opening day at Prairie Meadows

Prairie Meadows, the Iowa racetrack that ushered in the era of North American racinos, begins an 83-day 2022 racing season Friday.

Situated in Altoona, about 10 miles northeast of Des Moines, Prairie Meadows opened for racing in 1989 but just two years later was forced into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In 1994, the track was approved for slot machines and in 1995 opened as North America’s first racino, combining racing and a casino.

The racing season begins with 22 days of all-Thoroughbred racing before switching to mixed Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse cards that run through closing day, Oct. 2. The racing week throughout the season spans Friday through Monday. First post Friday and Saturday is 6 p.m. Central, and Sunday and Monday cards begin at 4. Prairie Meadows has no turf course. The dirt oval is one mile in circumference with a 1,033-foot homestretch.

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Prairie Meadows, unlike many Midwest racing jurisdictions, has consistently offered plentiful racing opportunities for local horsemen. Prairie ran 596 Thoroughbred races during its 2021 season, about the same number as every non-COVID-19 meeting for more than a decade. The track’s greater issue has been maintaining an adequate horse population to fill those races. Thoroughbred races during the 2021 season averaged just 6.46 starters, and favorites won nearly 40 percent of the races. Prairie could receive at least a modest boost from the shuttering this summer of Arlington Park outside Chicago, though more Chicago horsemen seeking a summer 2022 home look to Horseshoe Indianapolis and Canterbury Park than to Iowa.

The Thoroughbred stakes schedule is surprisingly robust and culminates July 8 and 9 with the Prairie Meadows Festival of Racing, which includes eight open stakes races highlighted by the Grade 3, $300,000 Prairie Meadows Cornhusker. Knicks Go won the 2021 Cornhusker on the way to being named Horse of the Year.

The Friday program features the $50,000 Goldfinch, written for 3-year-old fillies over six furlongs and carded as race 7, post time 8:42. The Goldfinch drew eight entrants, among them Speedometer, trained by Steve Asmussen. Asmussen doesn’t stable at Prairie Meadows but is a regular stakes participant, having run 11 horses during the 2021 meet, a dozen in 2020, and 18 throughout the 2019 season. Asmussen’s runners at Prairie during 2021 failed to win, but that was a far cry from the previous four seasons, during which his Prairie Meadows starters won 17 times from 52 starts. Speedometer found a good winter rhythm at Sam Houston, scoring blowout maiden and allowance race wins, but hasn’t started since March 3.

Muted, who ships from Keeneland for trainer Rusty Arnold, looks like the Goldfinch favorite, though she hasn’t raced since November and has changed barns for her 3-year-old campaign. Iowa-bred Demidanu hasn’t yet started in an open race and last saw action in September. But she won 3 of 4 races last summer, including a blowout debut victory showing she can be readied for a representative showing off works and gallops.