While the first Saturday in May signals Derby Day south of the border at Kentucky’s Churchill Downs, a little closer to home May 1 marks the opening day for harness racing on the half-mile track at Hanover Raceway.
General Manager Gord Dougan is excited to get the racing season underway.
“Because of the weather, it feels like we should have started earlier,” he joked.
“We have two special events in May: on opening day the first 300 in attendance will get a Hanover Raceway baseball cap with the purchase of a program,” Dougan said, “Also, for the month of May, any time you make an exotic bet — which includes anything other than win, place or show — you can put your losing tickets into a draw for a $3,000 travel gift certificate. We call it ‘explore the exotic’, and it has two meanings; one way, it’s exotic as in a Carribean vacation, and the other is as in the exotic bets you can place.”
According to Dougan the most common exotic bets are the exacter, triacter, and superfecta, while other options include the daily double, or the pick four.
The ‘explore the exotic’ promotion is taking place at seven racetracks across Western Ontario in the Racetracks of Ontario Marketing and Promoting (ROMP) group including tracks in Sarnia, London, Barrie, Elora, Clinton, and Hamilton.
The grand prize draw will take place on May 28 in London, after a number of qualifying draws have taken place at each track.
“There will be quaifier draws each race night for four weeks where we draw four names,” Dougan explained, “those names will be in for the final draw, and someone from one of the seven tracks will win the trip — we’re hoping it’s someone who visits the Hanover track.”
Starting on July 7 and going until the end of August Wednesday races will take place at the raceway.
“We typically have close to 100 competitors per night in July and August,” Dougan said, “We have nine race days in July, so we expect over 800 riders in July, and close to 800 again in August.”
The majority of horses competing at Hanover Raceway come from Huron-Perth, Grey and Bruce, but Dougan said they also host racers from the Hamilton-Flamboro region, or as far away as Quebec and the United States.
“They come from all over, but I would say 70 per cent or more of our horses are local. We like it that way,” he said.
Another event planned at the track will be the Dream of Glory race on July 31.
“That’s a $100,000 race for three-year-old trotters,” Dougan said, “We follow that with a fireworks demonstration worth over $13,000 put on by W.C. Smith in Clifford.”
Other season-ending promotions include a $2,500 home renovation gift certificate from Hanover RONA and a $3,000 travel voucher from Advantage Hanover Travel.
“We’ll draw those at the end of the season, and we’ll also be having nightly draws too,” said Dougan.
“There are a couple other things we’ll emphasize during the season. First, we’re holding tours of the back stretch during race nights, where tour guides will bring visitors around to check out the horses and the riders to find out what goes on on the back stretch. That’ll be happening each race night,” he said, “There will also be information nights available to the public on Monday nights on how to read a race program; a lot of beginners say they can’t understand race programs, so we’ll try to simplify them a bit. We’re doing everything we can to accommodate people.”
Parking and admission to the raceway are free.