Cleveland’s ThistleDown Racino is preparing for an upcoming 100-day live racing season that begins April 27, but perhaps as importantly, the racino has been approved for a full simulcast schedule of racing for the first time in four months.
“We’re excited to finally have the simulcast agreement in place so we can start moving forward again,” said Director of Operations David Ellsworth. “They were hard-fought negotiations, but we have something we can live with in order to offer a premium product to our racing fans.”
A dispute over simulcast fees kept 23 racetracks around the country in the MidAtlantic Cooperative—including ThistleDown—from simulcasting popular tracks controlled by Monarch Content Management.
The Monarch tracks include New Jersey’s Meadowlands, Florida’s Gulfstream Park, Santa Anita Park and Golden Gate Fields in California and Arizona’s Turf Paradise.
The new agreement, which runs through 2017, was signed just in time for the annual Triple Crown races and qualifiers, such as the $1 million Wood Memorial at Aqueduct Racetrack, $750,000 Santa Anita Derby and $750,000 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland.
“This is going to be a very good year for ThistleDown racing,” said Ellsworth, who engineered a leaner season of 100 racing dates, 22 less than a year ago and 87 fewer dates than in 2005.
Supported by racino income, ThistleDown’s daily purse total will average $130,000.
