Hawthorne cancels due to lack of entries

Due to a lack of entries, Hawthorne Race Course will be vacating the racing

card for Tuesday. Now into the fifth week of racing, this is the second week of

four day racing scheduled at Hawthorne. While there were insufficient entries

for the Tuesday card, races are expected to fill for the Wednesday card and all

following cards.

"This is not something we want to do, but at the same time, we don't want to

put out a subpar racing card either," Assistant General Manager Jim Miller

explained. "This entry day had 21 possible race options and did not draw a ton

of interest. Cards early in the meet filled well and have tailed off in the past

week, but more horses are shipping in and getting ready.

"In my mind, it is pointless to overextend the horse population when it

doesn't make sense. The races that filled or got close to filling will become

our extras for Wednesday and we will hopefully produce better cards.

"We have worked very hard to get our purse account back to a break even

point, and we have done so," Miller continued. "Why would I, or the horsemen,

want to put out a card paying $170,000 in purses that may only generate $25,000

in purse revenue? The last thing we want to do is put ourselves in an

unnecessary hole. Things will improve and we will continue to work with our

horsemen to improve the product."

Live racing will take place at Hawthorne Friday with a first post of 1:30

p.m. (CST). Racing is scheduled on Friday and Saturday, followed by Wednesday,

Friday and Saturday next week, then adding Tuesdays for the remainder of the

meet.