Prairie Meadows meet a mixed bag

Prairie Meadows ended its 36-day mixed meeting with mixed results, showing solid gains in all-sources average daily handle but showing declines in average daily ontrack handle compared to the comparable 48-day mixed meeting last year.

Average all-source handle per day for 35 programs this year was $503,386, up 12.5 percent from last year's figure of $447,255. Opening day of the mixed meeting from 2006 was omitted from these averages, since racing was cancelled after the first race because of adverse track conditions. Average daily ontrack handle at the meeting was $56,289, down five percent from last year's figure of $59,034.

The riding title wasn't settled until closing night, but ended with Alex Birzer winning his first Prairie Meadows title by a 30-28 margin over Glenn Corbett, who had captured the mixed meeting title in six of the past seven seasons. Prairie Meadows's all-time leading trainer, Dick Clark, captured his sixth straight mixed meet title by a 25-18 margin over Ray Tracy Jr.