Three Thoroughbred tracks comprising much of the nighttime simulcast market over the next few months have announced a coordinated plan to reschedule their post times beginning with live racing on Dec. 26.
The trio of tracks owned by Penn National Gaming—the Hollywood Casinos at both Charles Town Races and Penn National Race Course, as well as Sam Houston Race Park—have teamed up to arrange a schedule that will eliminate conflicts between the signals.
The new timetable will allow in upwards of 28 races at the three tracks to be scheduled no less than five minutes apart, with all but the second race at Sam Houston and fourth at Penn National being spaced at least six minutes apart.
"We felt this was a good opportunity to coordinate post times among our nighttime Thoroughbred tracks," said Chris McErlean, Penn National Gaming's vice president of racing. "While it is certainly beneficial to the tracks, it is really being done for the benefit of our on and off-track fans and customers who shouldn't be put in the position to choose one track over another when we can take reasonable steps to avoid it. We spoke with the folks at Delta Downs and formulated this schedule with their current post times in mind as well."
Charles Town will conduct its live racing from Tuesday through Saturday until May 2013. Penn National runs Tuesday through Saturday for the remainder of 2012 and goes to its Thursday through Saturday schedule for the first two months of 2013 before adding back Wednesdays in March. Sam Houston will kick off its meet Jan. 18, 2013 and hold night racing on both Friday and Saturday.
