The fog may be lifting and the ice thawing in a Virginia racing dispute that canceled the 2014 Colonial Downs meet.
The crowd at Colonial Downs’s closing weekend was thin, while 40,000 attended the Gold Cup jump racing. What’s the lesson there?
A Breeders’ Cup favorite is scratched, plus news from around the mid-Atlantic, in the latest NewsBrief.
The Virginia Racing Commission convened on a gray October day in Richmond, which was only foreshadowing what was to come next.
At today’s Virginia Racing Commission meeting, Colonial Downs surrendered its racetrack operators license, possibly ending the Jeff Jacobs era in Virginia racing.
Horses raised in Virginia are thriving everywhere but at home. Tomorrow’s Racing Commission meeting might, or might not, resolve the long impasse over days.
Colonial Downs says it’s fixing Virginia racing by creating, then negotiating with a new “horsemen’s group.” Nick Hahn says that sounds more like gelding.
Colonial Downs, Inc., says it’ll close its track and OTBs unless the Virginia Racing Commission approves its proposed schedule – and contract with a new horsemen’s group.
Whether it will end with a signed contract, or the relinquishing of the Colonial Downs’s license, Virginia’s dates dispute is moving towards an end game.
Tomorrow’s state-bred racing at Laurel Park — instead of Colonial Downs — gives Virginia breeders something they’re used to: an out-of-state chance to shine.
