Portland plans to go head-to-head with Emerald

[algobbi]

Scrambling to stay relevant in Northwest racing, Portland Meadows will abandon its traditional winter meeting in 2012 in favor of a summer/fall schedule that will place it in direct competition with Emerald Downs.

Final approval of race dates by the Oregon Horse Racing Commission could be months away, but both William Alempijevic, general manager of Portland Meadows, and Jim Fergason, president of the Oregon Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association, said this week that a 2012 summer meeting is essentially a done deal. Fergason said horsemen were told of plans during bargaining sessions with Portland Meadows officials and had little choice but to accept.

http://www.drf.com/news/portland-mea...-during-summer

[drjohnh]

i just came to post the story. very bad news for emerald..we are not filling races right now.

[Vertigo]

Ugh, this is sad news to me. Portland is a gross track, and I do not want it taking away from Emerald. Working in opposite seasons worked out well as a fan--basically year round racing.

[FlowerEssence]

Geez! Not enough horses as it is!

[Reposmoral]

Although as a Pacific Northwest resident, the idea of a winter race meet always seemed ridiculously stupid to me. The weather here during most of winter and even into spring is pretty much consistently awful.

[daisy]

Yes, let's kill racing once and for all! Don't forget that Boise runs in the summer as well, and the fairs (including OREGON fairs which are very successful) do, too.

Longacres & Portland used to overlap, yes, but that was when WA had 1500-foal crops. We are down to 300-400 WA-bred foals/year. You think this year at EMD is bad, wait until next year and the year after.

Emerald can't even come close to PM on costs of horses in training. The only reason we're even getting 8 races a day is Portland horses and horsemen. Unless PM is going to run a whole bunch of QH and mixed breed races, this will be a catastrophe.

[jennywho]

Awhile ago Stronach was trying to buy EMD from Crockett and he turned him down. I always figured he would try to get revenge for him not selling, guessing this might be it. Honestly I can't see how moving to summer is going to increase the simulcasting handle being that there's more competition and PM is already averaging just over 7 horses per race. I would be surprised if moving it to weekends in the summer is going to increase on track handle enough to compensate for the loss in simulcasting monies.

If this goes through it just might be the final nail in the coffin for PNW racing.