HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – Oaklawn Park has a new training center about 20 miles from the track, and it will be open for year-round access following the close of the current meet on May 1, track president Lou Cella said Tuesday. “We just made that decision last week,” Cella said. “We’re going to open to trainers for use after the season. It will be year round, starting after the meet.” The facility is located on Highway 70, just a few miles from Interstate 30. Cella said it was originally purchased as something of an insurance policy against “the ubiquitous springtime contagions,” like equine herpesvirus, that have been known to shut down meets. “So we can sleep at night, we bought that property to have an off-site location should we need to quarantine horses,” he said. “We’ve never had that issue at Oaklawn, knock on wood. It’s not happened in Arkansas.” The facility is the former Ten Mile Creek Training Center, and Oaklawn has kept that name, Cella said. It features a half-mile training track and four barns with 20 stalls each. There also are two EuroXciser exercise wheels, and there will be an area to swim horses.The barns are brand new and are smaller versions of those at Oaklawn. The surface on the training track is made up of the same material as at Oaklawn. There is a new Duralock safety rail in place around the track, which also has a new base. “Over the summer, we picked up the track entirely,” Cella said. “We created a new base, a limestone base.” Cella said a handful of stables have been using the facility since December. Soft opening for hotel Oaklawn is scheduled to open its new hotel to the public on April 5, Cella said. It overlooks the track’s first turn. “It will be a soft opening,” Cella said. “Not all of the floors will open April 5. It will be a handful of floors to see how the hotel works.” Cella said reservations can be made by calling Oaklawn.