Sunland Park gets permission to delay start of meet

Sunland Park received approval to postpone the beginning of its meet by 30 days during a special meeting of the New Mexico Racing Commission on Friday. The track was to have opened its mixed meet on Dec. 26.

The issue will be revisited at a January meeting. The vote was unanimous.

Sunland was granted a 42-date meet that runs through March 30, 2021. However, the dates awarded were previously announced by the commission as subject to change due to the coronavirus pandemic. The casinos at the state’s tracks have been unable to open, while Sunland is near El Paso, Texas, which has been hit hard by COVID-19.

The commission on Friday also approved increasing purses by 30 percent at Zia Park. The track also will run an additional race on each of its final six cards, Dec. 14-16 and Dec. 21-23. First post will be a half-hour earlier on those dates, at 11:30 a.m. Mountain.

The commission opened its meeting with brief remarks and went into a more than two-hour executive session before emerging and taking a vote on the two items. There was no discussion in open forum.

Zia is the lone track racing at the present time in New Mexico.