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Yonkers Raceway History Yonkers Raceway, considered a city landmark, was first opened in 1899 by William H. Clark's Empire City Trotting Club. Clark died in 1900 and, with much litigation by his heirs over its proposed sale, the track remained closed for most of the next seven years except for special events.

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• Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway put more than 1,000 workers on furlough in mid-March after closing its doors as the virus spread, particularly in New York City and its suburbs. With its 4,700 slot machines, Empire City, owned by MGM Resorts, is the largest private employer in Yonkers and is one of the largest gaming floors in the country.

The same can’t be said for Monticello, which Joe Faraldo called a tinderbox.

by Dave Briggs

Standardbred Owners Association of New York (SOA of NY) president Joe Faraldo said the re-opening of Yonkers Raceway could happen as soon as the second or third week of June, but is fraught with complications. Fortunately, the track’s management, casino company MGM, has shown interest in returning to racing as soon as possible, Faraldo said.

“Yonkers is in a unique situation because Yonkers does not have a large, substantial horse population on site,” Faraldo said. “So, the terms and conditions that are being given to (Yonkers) management to comply with are stricter and more difficult to comply with than any of the upstate tracks like Vernon, Tioga, Buffalo, Saratoga and Batavia. They have big barn areas and a horse population that’s on site.

“(Yonkers has) ship ins, so the Gaming Commission is requiring that, basically, we quarantine people who are shipping in. Yonkers is required to make sure the people that are shipping in have tested for antibodies and have antibodies. If someone stayed home and never got sick and never contracted this disease, they aren’t going to have any antibodies. They complied with the regulations, so they are making life difficult for us because we’re in a unique situation.

“To MGM’s credit, they have been trying to address all of these things. They are putting in faucets where you don’t have to touch the handle. They are putting plastic shields up in the race office. They are setting out points where people who want to go in and claim a horse or have business in the race office, have to stand behind a shield. They are doing all these things. We’ve had conference calls with them (Friday) at 4 o’clock and the day before at 3 o’clock. I think they are actually acting in good faith to try to be in compliance with these really, really strict requirements, some of which I don’t know how we’re going to address. I think they are trying to do that and we’re working with them to do exactly that.”

Faraldo said there is between $4 million and $5 million in reserve in the Yonkers purse account, but he has to manage any re-opening of racing to avoid a shortfall before the track’s casino re-opens. Faraldo estimates the casino won’t re-open before July 1, “so I have to manage the purse account — along with the racetrack’s okay — so that we don’t run out of money and have to start and stop again, because the casino doesn’t open. Then I have to worry about will the casino generate 50 per cent of its normal income, whatever restrictions will be set for them at first? Will it be 25 per cent or 75 per cent of their income? If they only have 50 per cent and I blow the $4-5 million because I want to race five days a week, like a jerk, then that means I’m going to have to shut down… or, when we get up and running, cut the purses by 50 per cent. Nobody wants to do that, so we’re working together.”

MONTICELLO A “TINDERBOX”

When Will Yonkers Raceway Casino Open

Faraldo said there’s much less harmony between horsepeople and management at Monticello Raceway.

“The real tinderbox is going to be Monticello,” Faraldo said. “The casino company has told us that they are not going to open unless the horsemen give up their share of on-track handle to the casino company, give up OTB revenue to the casino company, give up intrastate and interstate simulcasting share… My feeling is that it is very, very critical that we stand up against each and every one of these forces that’s working against the health of this industry going forward. I cannot have a casino company dictating the terms and conditions under which racing is conducted in New York state that trumps the legislature, the contract, the governor. The casino company is basically saying that they are going to control racing. That’s something that… whether you agree with me or disagree with me, I think on this level we’re all in agreement. You cannot have that become the dynamic that drives this game because I guarantee you that this game is done.

“You cannot let — even under these (COVID-19) circumstances — these casino companies get a foot in the door and control racing because they’ll kill it… I know there are extraordinary circumstances, but I don’t want them to use these extraordinary circumstances to browbeat and bully the horsemen.”

Yonkers Raceway Casino Bus Schedule

Yonkers will end its 2020 season with the New York Sire Stakes Night of Champions, but a number of stakes, including the Yonkers Trot and Messenger Stakes, have been cancelled for the year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

by Debbie Little

When Yonkers Raceway returned to action on Monday, June 22 after being sidelined for 15 weeks by the coronavirus pandemic, it seemed like everything was back on track at the historic Hilltop oval.

But with their casino still dark, the wheels came off on Monday, Aug. 18, when a joint press release from Empire City Casino by MGM Resorts and the Standardbred Owners Association of New York (SOA) announced an agreement to extend racing only through Saturday, Sept. 12, which is New York Sire Stakes (NYSS) Night of Champions.

“The casino has been closed since March, so that’s a long time of no money coming in for purses,” said Yonkers Raceway director of racing Alex Dadoyan. “And it’s not just the casino. Even though we have been open with racing, we have not been able to have people on property to wager either for the live racing or for simulcasting. The Saratoga [thoroughbred] meet is running upstate and that’s always the top simulcast signal for any track where you can generate some money on simulcasting and we’ve not been open the whole time.”

The release explains that racing would have ceased in August if not for this agreement where MGM Resorts will continue to pay operating expenses and the SOA will contribute $1.2 million to purses.

“Maybe people outside of the paddock at Yonkers weren’t aware, but I’ve been telling everybody when the purses run out, racing will stop here. Period. End of sentence,” said SOA president Joe Faraldo.

“And then we decided to do this little bridge thing with the $1.2 million, which I was hoping we wouldn’t have to do. Maybe Christ could turn water into wine, but the SOA can’t turn pennies into millions of dollars. It just isn’t going to happen.”

The $1.2 million is coming from the SOA treasury and is not purse money. It is money that would otherwise be used for administration, welfare and retirement benefits for their membership, but the SOA did not believe that this amount would affect the form of benefits or services that they provide.
“I’ll do what I can do,” said Faraldo. “And that $1.2 million, that’s not something to sneeze about.”

The SOA of New York is stepping up to do this because we’re concerned about the Night of Champions. The vast majority of the funding [for Night of Champions] comes from revenue generated at Yonkers Raceway from racing as a minor component and from the VLTs as a major component. So we didn’t want to see all that effort go down the drain.”

Since returning to racing in June, the SOA has tried to be strategic and creative when it came to doling out their purse monies. They even picked up some sire stakes races originally scheduled for Monticello, because racing four nights with one NYSS night means only three nights would come from their purse account.

“In this economic time it is beneficial,” said Faraldo. “Because in normal times sometimes those (NYSS) races do not generate betting interest like your regular overnights, but in these times it’s absolutely essential that we have that. And actually I think the best night we had was all sire stakes which I couldn’t figure out at all. It hasn’t repeated but it did happen once this year. I’m glad we had enough reserves to get us through as long as we did. I wish we had more or that I had more alternatives, but I don’t.”

Even though Night of Champions is secure on the calendar, other stakes were not so fortunate.

The Yonkers Trot, the Messenger Stakes and their companion races – the New York, New York Mile (formerly the Hudson Filly Trot) and the MGM Park Place (formerly the Lady Maud) – are casualties of COVID-19.

“There was no more money, and if you read the release, the SOA made some maneuvers to fund for another month or so and they chose not to have those stakes and use that money for overnights instead,” said Dadoyan.

Empire City Yonkers Raceway

Dadoyan informed the Hambletonian Society when the decision was made to cancel the stakes with the hope that another track would step up to host the historic Triple Crown races.

“I did make some calls to various jurisdictions and a couple of tracks and nobody has any excess dollars to put into those races,” said Hambletonian Society president John Campbell. “The first priority for the SOA is to get their overnight horsemen and overnight horses raced and then the stakes would be another priority.”

It’s a balancing act putting on stakes for all these jurisdictions. I think every jurisdiction and every horsemen’s association realizes the importance of stakes to the industry, to the owners, the trainers and the breeding industry.”

According to Hambletonian Society stakes manager David Janes, a total of 47 colt trotters and 40 filly trotters made their 3-year-old payments on Feb. 15 for the Yonkers Trot and New York, New York Mile and as per the conditions, the monies will be prorated among the owners of the horses eligible at the time of cancellation.

The same conditions apply to the 44 colt pacers and 39 filly pacers for the Messenger and Park Place.

Is Yonkers Raceway Casino Open

“Obviously everyone can’t wait to get back to some sense of normal and we’re all hoping for a return to that,” said Dadoyan. “Having Empire City Casino open and having Yonkers Raceway resume and get back to some bit of normal. There hasn’t been a lot of normal in this area for the last six months or so, so everyone, in all aspects of life, is looking forward to a return to what was normal.”

Yonkers Raceway Replays