Zia Park Racetrack & Casino in Hobbs, N. M., has rescheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 27, the seven stakes that were postponed this weekend due to an unseasonable snowfall and cold temperatures.
The special Thanksgiving Eve race card that also includes two Quarter Horse championship races will offer more than $1.1 million in purses. The races will air on HRTV, with radio coverage by the Horse Racing Radio Network.
After Zia Park concludes its seven stakes races, its sister racetrack, Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course, will hold four stakes races as part of its Thanksgiving Eve Racing Festival. Many of Wednesday's stakes races from Zia Park and Penn National will be part of the Penn Gaming Racing Challenge that will be launched by parent company Penn National Gaming, Inc. in 2014.
Zia Park's rescheduled Thoroughbred stakes are:
—Inaugural running of the $300,000 Zia Park Oaks for 3-year-old fillies at 1 1/16 miles in the valuable stakes race for female horses ever contested in New Mexico.
—Multiple stakes winner Broadway Empire competes in the $200,000 Zia Park Derby for 3-year-olds at 1 1/16 miles.
—Ol Winedrinker Who, the first New Mexico-based horse to win the Zia Park Derby in 2012, heads the $150,000 Zia Park Distance Championship for older horses at 1 1/8 miles.
—A battle of the sexes between New Mexico Cup winners That's the Idea and Reaper in the $140,000 Eddy County Stakes for 2-year-olds bred in New Mexico at a mile.
—Winter Book will try to defend home field against shippers in the $55,000 Zia Park Distaff for fillies and mares at 6 furlongs.
Racing at Zia Park.
Coady Photography