Record wet weather to blame for Lone Star handle declines

Lone Star Park experienced a decline in handle on its live races, but an increase in attendance during its 50-date meet that closed on Sunday. The season that started in April ranked as the wettest in the history of the Grand Prairie, Texas, track. Lone Star’s inaugural meet was in 1997.

Lone Star handled an average $817,320 a day on its live races from all sources this meet, down 9 percent from the average of $897,758 during the corresponding, 50-date meet in 2014. Handle on Lone Star’s races offtrack averaged $573,788 a card, a drop of 8 percent, while ontrack patrons bet an average of $243,532 a card, which was down 11 percent.

Lone Star lost 25 races during five partial-card cancellations at the hands of heavy rain and lightning. There were 52 fewer turf races than 2014, with Lone Star running 99 this year compared with last season’s 151.

“This meet was plagued by the worst weather that I’ve ever had to endure as a track GM,” said Scott Wells, who also is president of Lone Star. “We had numerous cancellations, and we had many, many races taken off the turf through the first three-quarters of the meet.

“Texas had the wettest month in the history of Texas in May…22 inches of rain,” he added. “Not just the wettest May, but the wettest month in the history of the state.”

Wells said a particular hit came on the night of the Texas Mile in late April, when a large crowd was assembled for a competitive renewal of the Grade 3, $200,000 race. A sudden rainstorm overtook the facility, there was a lengthy weather delay, and ultimately the card was canceled after the first race.

“You just can’t overcome things like that,” Wells said. “But I’m so proud we rebounded after the weather became more normal. Of course our live handle was down because of the cancellations, but we did remarkably well on our export considering the circumstances, and our attendance actually ended up being 4 percent better than last year, which is incredible. We had at least seven days where we had a crowd of 14,000 or better, and there are a lot of tracks in the U.S. that would covet that kind of attendance.”

Attendance averaged 7,325 patrons a card, up 4.8 percent from the same meet in 2014.

Purses averaged $140,099 a program, compared with $142,729 in 2014. Lone Star averaged 8.1 starters a race compared with 8.2 during the same meet in 2014.

“We had great support from owners and trainers,” Wells said. “If you look at our number of horses per race, it was only eight, which is still slightly better than the national average. However, if you throw out the turf races that we had to cancel that had 10- and 12-horse fields going down to four- and five-horse fields, we averaged well over nine horses a race.”

Favorites won at a 42 percent clip in 2015.

Karl Broberg won his second consecutive Lone Star title with 66 wins from 167 starts. His stable earned $610,531. Jockey C.J. McMahon won his first Lone Star title with 95 wins from 284 starts, while he also led all riders in mount earnings with $985,127. Danny Keene was the leading owner for the third year in a row, winning 38 races from 140 starts. He also led all owners in earnings this meet with $495,034.

The horse of the meet was Majestic City, winner of the Grade 3, $200,000 Lone Star Park Handicap on May 25.