The just completed holiday weekend was more than kind to mid-Atlantic tracks, according to our HandleTrak report. Business at Charles Town, Delaware, Monmouth, Parx Racing, Penn National, and Timonium rose by more than 17 percent during the weekend.
Every track but Charles Town experienced double-digit percentage gains over the weekend — and Charles Town ran one fewer day, carding only a Saturday card. That Saturday card handled a fairly robust total of more than $975,000, according to the Equibase chart. In fact, the other tracks all enjoyed 20 to 30 percent gains over the previous weekend.
Monmouth led the tracks, as it has every weekend since the Preakness, with handle of more than $10 million, up nearly a quarter from the prior weekend. Interestingly, though it had the lowest daily average handle of the bunch at about $465,000, Timonium’s on-track numbers were solid; in fact, the $157,000 in on-track business it did on Sunday trailed only Monmouth’s two cards in on-track business during the weekend.
Collectively, the tracks handled an additional $8.6 million on Labor Day. That was 30 percent above Labor Day 2012 for the same four tracks (Delaware, Monmouth, Parx, and Timonium). Notably, the big stakes card at Parx — bolstered this year with the addition of the G3 Greenwood Cup — saw handle rise by about one-third this year.
REGIONAL HANDLE BY WEEKEND
