Turfway's Holiday handle rises

Turfway Park showed increases in both all-sources and ontrack handle at its 25-day Holiday meet that ended Sunday.

All-sources handle averaged $3,528,969 a day, an increase of 13.9 percent over last year's $3,097,188. Ontrack handle averaged $139,197, up 3.2 percent from last year's $134,905. Although Turfway canceled eight of its nine races on Dec. 13 due to a power outage, seven of those races were made up over the balance of the meet. In total, 259 races were run, 12 more than at 2005's 24-day meet.

Field size averaged 10.2 horses per race, all of which were contested over a Polytrack racing surface.

Miguel Mena earned his first Turfway riding title, recording 42 wins from 200 mounts. Apprentice Alonso Quinonez was second with 30 wins.

Greg Foley and Speedy Smithwick tied for leading trainer honors with seven wins each, and David Ross was the meet's leading owner with five winners.

Turfway is now running its 2007 winter-spring meet, which goes through April 5.