Jon
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Post by Jon on Aug 19, 2013 22:32:08 GMT -5
The Timonium Race Track is home to Live and simulcast Thoroughbred Horseracing The Maryland State Fair is home to a 5/8th mile oval, which overlooks scenic York Road. Live thoroughbred horseracing and simulcast racing begins Friday, August 23rd, 2013 and runs through Monday, September 2nd, 2013, except Tuesday, August 27th, 2013, which will be a dark day. Post time is 1pm. Admission to the racetrack is included in the admission price of the fair.
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cait
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Post by cait on Aug 24, 2013 18:47:57 GMT -5
i love Timonium! if you stand along the backstretch you can really see and hear the load and almost reach out and touch the horses. sure -it's not glamorous - it's not great racing - but it's pretty good betting racing. it's different and it's fun, people don't realize that timonium is one of the oldest tracks - it began racing in 1887. i remember when it was a year round training facility. but the burbs took their toll - the countryside that once surrounded timonium is now malls etc. it's probably not worth upgrading the barns which are now poretty crummy - here's the best article i found about the Spa South! Timonium Fair Racing Opens, 1887 Sep 1st 2010 This Saturday, I am heading south to spend the day at Timonium Race Track on the Maryland State Fairgrounds north of Baltimore. The racing oval at Timonium is one of the oldest in the country and the meet there is the only one held in conjunction with a fair east of the Mississippi. The grounds at Timonium started as a county fairgrounds in 1879 and the first race meeting commenced in 1887. Once upon a time, a horse racing fair circuit thrived in the United States. Those who remember watching the races at a fairground will no doubt have fond memories to share. Bring up the Massachusetts fair to anyone who attended those races and they will surely share a story. Andy Beyer immortalized the fun (and larceny) at the Barrington Fair in Massachusetts in his classic My $50,000 Year at the Races. One of my articles about a riot that took place at Suffolk Downs in the 1940s has attracted commenters with stories about the fair circuit in Massachusetts. In 1939, the year after Pimlico hosted the most famous race of the twentieth century, Marylanders supported five tracks and fifty days of racing on a state-wide fair circuit. Today, only Timonium and seven days of racing remain. The track at Timonium opened in 1887, eleven years after the establishment of the fairgrounds. In checking the news reports from the Baltimore Sun, the first day of racing didn’t go all that smoothly. In a long review of all the activity at the opening day of the fair, the article reported this on September 7th 1887: “The horse races are the leading attraction. Just prior to the hour of starting them yesterday it was discovered that the starter’s bell was stolen. A large dinner bell was secured and Mr. Arthur Emory, the starting judge handled it masterly. The first race was for horses of the three-minute class, mile heats, best 3 in 5, to harness, purse $200. It closed with eleven entries, but just before the start some owners of the county horses objected to Baltimore city horses starting, and produced the catalogue, which showed that the purse was offered for Baltimore county horses only, while the Baltimore city owners produced a copy of the advertisement for entries, which appeared in the Baltimore Sun, in which no specifications was made as to where the horses were owned. The advertisement was taken as official against the catalogue and the horses ordered to start. The county horses withdrew…an extra race will be arranged for the county horses that did not start in this race.” The first day of racing only had four races. The second race was also for harness horses. The third carried this condition: “…a running race for ponies not over 14 1/2 hands high, and riders not over 15 years of age, half mile heats, best two out of three. First horse got a saddle, second a bridle and third a whip…” The final race of the day was a steeplechase race for “gentleman riders” at a distance of 1 1/2 miles. Also of note on opening day, a rabbit that made its way onto the track between heats “…created considerable amusement as he passed through a perfect fusillade of missiles, which were thrown at him without any of them striking him…” The newspaper also noted that the Middletown Coronet Band would be performing daily during the race meet. The opening day of racing at Timonium must have been memorable one for those in attendance. While opening day didn’t have any flat races for thoroughbreds, the opening meet would include “dashes”. This was the terminology used for non-heat flat races for thoroughbreds before they became the common form of racing in the U.S. by the end of the nineteenth century. Harness racing disappeared from the program at Timonium by the beginning of the twentieth century and “dashes”, steeplechase, donkey races, and other odd conditions comprised the day’s entertainment. Here are the race results from the tenth of September 1904: Timonium racing has survived the pressures of development and a declining Maryland racing industry. They lost many of their race dates in the 1980s and nearly closed for good in 1984 but the track continues to survive through tough times and carry on a racing tradition over a century old and counting. Colins Ghost
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2013 19:10:36 GMT -5
I love stories about old-time race tracks. Colins Ghost has a "slew" of them.
Wasn't Timonium always only about 3-4 weeks in the summer?
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Post by Evelyn on Aug 25, 2013 16:28:42 GMT -5
It's true about the backstretch! I remember we were standing there and an older jock was telling all the other jocks not to let the 3 get away. They all broke for the lead, except the older jock. Then in the stretch, the older jock made his move on the ones left in front and won easily!
It's a really fun day. Besides the racing, I liked the kids horse shows, the pig competitions were hilarious (they are noisy critters!) and the 4H exhibitions. There's so much to see!
It's a great facility used year round. I remember a dog show held in the Cow Palace that I "had the pleasure" of attending (I was the lugger and the fetcher LOL)
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cait
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Post by cait on Aug 25, 2013 18:24:05 GMT -5
that was a longtime md jock - john adams
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2013 18:35:47 GMT -5
That IS an older jockey. How was he able to sneak past the Secret Service to get to the races?
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Post by Evelyn on Aug 25, 2013 22:12:07 GMT -5
George - I think it was his son
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2013 22:16:31 GMT -5
Quincy?
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cait
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Post by cait on Aug 26, 2013 16:12:21 GMT -5
john k adams - i think the son - probably 50-60 mow - nice guy
in case anyone's wondering, the ferris wheels are stopped when races ready to go - never understood why they're on the far turn - other than that's where they've always been
and yes - used to have a "real" meeting - 4-6 weeks i think - also was a yr round training facility - but then pimlico used to have a longer spring meet and a fall meet - am just glad timonium's still here - at least 10 days this year - last year only 7
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2013 16:24:11 GMT -5
I HATE THAT PLACE.............. JUST BECAUSE!!
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cait
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Post by cait on Aug 26, 2013 16:42:56 GMT -5
you'd ;ove it - a plethora of yummy junk food!
can picture you screaming on the whirlaway ride and holding court under the bingo tent lmao
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2013 17:47:37 GMT -5
Careful, he may try to guess your weight and age.
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cait
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Post by cait on Aug 31, 2013 15:58:23 GMT -5
nice article about spa south - maybe it will bring some younger fans - never thought of that but there are lots of kids running around the grandstand lol
Racing at Maryland Fair a treasured tradition, but challenges loom Finding horses to run 10-day meet at Timonium is difficult given small foal crops in recent years
By Chris Korman, The Baltimore Sun
Gina Riley staked out a spot near the finish line long before the crowds arrived at the Timonium Fairground race track Sunday. She put a blanket on the ground, parked a cooler nearby and sat in the shade of the grandstand. She thought of her son, Bryce, who would have turned 34 Friday.
Riley and her husband, Todd Tracey, make this trip every year in honor of Bryce, who had spent his life fighting dermatomyositis, a rare muscle and tissue disease that prevented him from going on rides at the Maryland Fair. He learned to bet on the horses instead, and attended every year from the mid-1980s to his death after brain surgery in 1999.
"He couldn't lift his hands up to pet them," she said. "But it was like the horses knew. They always bent their heads lower just for him."
Riley and Tracey, along with nine friends and family members of all ages, eventually blended into the few thousand that gathered beside the track. That is unusual. Horse racing in Maryland — and elsewhere — has largely failed to capture a young audience or market itself as family friendly. But the short Timonium meet takes place during the fair, lending it a built-in audience of families.
Attending the races does not cost extra, and many families stopped in Sunday for one or two races on their way to rides. Fans can stand along the fence, up against the track, and have easy access to the paddock where the horses parade before racing.
"We hadn't really thought of horse racing as something to do," Riley said. "But once we came to the fair and saw it here, it made so much sense as something the family could do together. And you look around and that's what it is, families enjoying a day at the races."
But the Timonium meet — fondly referred to as "The Big T" by racing fans in the state — has been buffeted by the same forces affecting the sport as Maryland strives to use state-subsidized purses to become one of the premier racing jurisdictions in the country again. The Timonium meet was expanded to 10 days this year, after featuring only seven days in most recent years. The Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association subsidized the extra days, hoping that the extended meet would give its members more chances to make money while serving as an advertisement to families like Riley's.
"It's just a long tradition in Maryland, something people remember doing as kids, and there's a special aura to racing here," said Gary Capuano, the long-time trainer.
Races on the small track — it's only 5/8 th of a mile — can be hard to fill, though. Many horses spent the summer running in nearby states and their trainers would prefer to rest them going into the more lucrative Laurel fall meet. Still others won't run at Timonium because their trainers or owners think they are not a good fit for the smaller track, which requires nimble sprinters. And while the Maryland breeding industry appears to be making a resurgence, racing secretary Georganne Hale said she is still several strong foal crops away from having a large enough horse population to draw from.
Chip Reed, a longtime owner in the state, has tried to enter horses in the meet but hasn't found a race that is a good fit, he said. The races offered at Timonium end up being suited for horses that have little chance to win elsewhere: The first three races Sunday featured 21 horses who'd combined for just six wins in more than 150 starts, almost entirely in low-level claiming races.
Slots money has increased purses from an average of $100,000 per day at Timonium to $150,000, but Hale is having trouble writing competitive races for higher level horses — the kind that bettors might pay attention to.
It also doesn't help that two tracks the meet would have generally drawn horses from, Charles Town and Penn National, have prevented their trainers from traveling to Timonium, Hale said. Both of those tracks are owned by Penn National and are attached to casinos that now face heavy competition from Maryland's growing gaming industry. Officials at those tracks could not be reached.
The Timonium meet does give smaller racing outfits in Maryland an opportunity to compete for the increased purses — that money was set aside to sustain the state's farms — and it also allows up-and-coming jockeys a chance to be noticed. Established riders often take these weeks off or race elsewhere.
"You look around the room and there are a lot of young guys trying to become something," said Travis Dunkelberger, a veteran of the Mid-Atlantic circuit. "The meet in general has a different feel, and it's a good start to the racing season here."
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