West Virginia racetracks Charles Town, Mountaineer to resume racing on May 14

West Virginia’s two Thoroughbred tracks will be allowed to conduct spectator-free racing beginning on May 14, the state’s governor said on Thursday night as part of a relaxation of directives intended to constrain the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

West Virginia’s two tracks, Mountaineer Park and Charles Town, have been ordered closed since mid-March, like most racetracks across the country. However, as states across the U.S. have begun relaxing restrictions on business activities, several racetracks have been given the go-ahead to resume racing spectator-free in the weeks ahead, including Churchill Downs in Kentucky and Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico.

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Erich Zimny, the vice president of racing operations at Charles Town, said on Friday morning that there are approximately 1,000 horses on the grounds of the track, and that training has continued unabated since the track was shut down on March 21. The only horses allowed to race at the track when it reopens will be horses stabled in West Virginia or West Virginia-bred horses, Zimny said, and all ship-ins would be required to go directly to a trainer already stabled on the backside.

“We have a pretty full complement of horses here, and we never stopped training,” Zimny said. “We should be ready to go.”

Mountaineer Park, which has an empty backstretch, is planning to begin accepting horses to the stable area on May 10 and work toward a planned reopening on May 31, according to Jana Tetrault, the executive director of the Mountaineer Park HBPA. Tetrault asked for ship-in policies to be confirmed by the track’s management, which did not immediately return a phone call on Friday.

Horsemen in the state had been lobbying the government for permission to reopen the tracks, which had been approved for spectator-free racing by the West Virginia Racing Commission on March 20. But those plans were scuttled when Gov. Jim Justice issued all “non-essential” businesses to close a day later, including the casinos attached to the tracks that generate a vast majority of the purse money for horse racing.

Both Charles Town and Mountaineer Park race at night, which would give them a good position in the current simulcasting marketplace. At present, only six tracks are running in the U.S., and two, Remington Park in Oklahoma, and Los Alamitos in California, hold night cards. One of the six tracks, Oaklawn Park, is scheduled to close after this weekend. Churchill Downs, which began holding occasional night cards in 2009, announced yesterday that it plans to open on May 16.

Zimny said that Charles Town expects to go back to its traditional schedule, racing three nights a week, Thursday through Saturday. He also said that Charles Town has some money saved up in its purse account from casino subsidies, and that average daily purse distribution should start out at the same level as when it closed, approximately $150,000 a day.

“We have a little bit of a buffer where we should be okay for a little while going forward,” Zimny said. “But we’ll have to monitor our business returns and adjust down the line if necessary.”

Mountaineer Park plans to run on a Sunday through Tuesday schedule, all at night, Tetrault said.

Charles Town was running live when the state issued the directives for businesses to close. It has already postponed its biggest race, the Charles Town Classic, which was scheduled for April 18. Mountaineer Park was scheduled to open its meet on April 26.