Daily Racing Form National Digital Edition
Although pandemic has eased, this won’t be business as usual
The pandemic summer of 2020 made for an entirely different feel at Ellis Park. Not only were there few fans in the old grandstand at the Henderson, Ky., track, but trainers and jockeys who in prior years would have traveled to Saratoga had no choice but to stay put in Kentucky.
The summer of 2021 is going to be different than any other year, too, and that’s because of the Churchill Downs turfcourse renovation that begins July 5. Dozens of trainers who normally use Churchill as their summer training base while shipping horses to run at Ellis and elsewhere are being displaced until early September. Some of the 1,500 or so Churchill horses will have crammed into the Ellis barn area, with others dispersing to various other tracks and training centers in this region and beyond in what has become a domino effect of complex proportions.
In Henderson and its outlying areas, the scramble for temporary housing is on.
“As for stall space, we can only hold about 700 horses, so you can do the math there,” Ellis racing secretary Dan Bork said. “As for living space for horsemen and their staffs, it’s been hit or miss. Some have taken out short-term leases at apartments or condos, and we’ve made arrangements with a Drury Inn for a horsemen’s rate that seems like it’ll work out. It’s a different situation, for sure.”
Bork conceded the openingday overnight for Sunday is light, with just 61 horses entered in eight races. That should fix itself as the 31-day meet unfolds.
“Even with all the money we’re giving away in purses, we might struggle to fill entries at times,” he said. “The pool of Churchill horses usually at our disposal is thinner, with some of them going to Colonial Downs or Arlington or Saratoga. But all in all, it still should be a really good meet.”
Record per-day purses projected at about $350,000 will entice many top outfits to be in action. Chad Brown and his local assistant, Whit Beckman, will have a 14-horse contingent at Ellis, and there are Kentucky mainstays such as Brad Cox, Steve Asmussen, Mike Maker, Bill Mott, and more who figure to be particularly strong in maiden-special and allowance races. Maiden races are worth as much as $51,000, including sizable bonuses for registered Kentucky-breds.
The jockey colony may be stronger than ever. Florent Geroux and Julien Leparoux intend to ride most Ellis cards instead of summering in Saratoga as had been custom, although both will be honoring a number of weekend out-of-town stakes commitments. In fact, among the jockeys who rode regularly the last three months at Keeneland and Churchill, only Tyler Gaffalione and Ricardo Santana Jr. will be fulltime at Saratoga.
A modest Pea Patch opener
The new owners of Ellis Park unveiled some really grand plans before the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission in June 2019. Little did officials with the New Mexico-based Laguna Development Corp. know that a pandemic was right around the corner, ready to indefinitely postpone a $50 million-plus overhaul of the western Kentucky track.
But that’s okay. Since opening in 1922, Ellis has survived floods, tornadoes, bankruptcy, blights, horsemen’s strikes, and all kinds of bumps in the country road. All that fans really need to know now is that a 31-day summer meet starts Sunday at what is fondly known as “The Pea Patch,” with ontrack attendance guidelines returning to normal.
A modest opening-day program of eight races will get under way at 12:50 p.m. Central, and it barely foreshadows the excellent brand of racing that lies ahead. Just five horses are in a starter-allowance sprint that will get things started, and a pair of allowances, each worth as much as $52,000, will co-anchor the card as races 4 and 7.
The first two stakes are set for next Sunday, July 4, when the $75,000 Ellis Park Turf, for fillies and mares, and the $60,000 Dade Park Dash, for 3-year-olds, are both run over a grass course looking lush following plentiful spring rain. The schedule peaks with five stakes led by the $200,000 Ellis Park Derby and $200,000 Groupie Doll on Aug. 15. In all, 16 stakes are on tap.
A three-day schedule will run Friday to Sunday except for the first full week (July 1-4), when the only Thursday card of the meet is held. The meet is being sponsored by Runhappy and runs through Sept. 4, after which Kentucky Downs will hold its six-day all-turf meet (Sept. 5-12). Offtrack viewers will be glad to know the Ellis television signal is now available in high definition.
‘Mr. Ellis’ with many hats
Jimmy McNerney is back in his element at Ellis Park. McNerney, 45, attended races in his youth at Ellis, where his mother worked every summer, and now as a longtime racing professional, he is establishing a proud legacy as a multitasker.
McNerney not only will call the Ellis races for the seventh straight year as the track’s public-address announcer, but he also composes the track’s morning line and appears between races on television as a handicapping analyst. His do-itall roles make him a “Mr. Ellis Park” more than anyone else in this recent era.
At other times during the year, McNerney is a jockey agent, but he said he does all he can to avoid obvious conflicts of interest. He said one of his current riders, Deshawn Parker, will ride sparingly at Ellis while based through the summer at Indiana Grand.