This is the sixteenth of a major series of articles concerning racetracks in the USA. We continue our review of USA racetracks with a final look at the closed tracks of Michigan.
Jackson Raceway (JCK)
Jackson Harness Raceway founded in the post-World War II era by industrialist Leon Slavin. The half mile oval (straight 600 ft) harness track was located at the Jackson Fairgrounds, a few blocks north of the town of Jackson. It was used mainly during the summer months having an open air grandstand seating 6,500, no clubhouse, the Sulky Lounge accommodating one hundred diners and parking for 1,000 cars.
When it opened for business on the evening of 28 May 1948, Jackson Raceway was the first pari mutual track in Michigan outside the greater Detroit area. Many of the opening days attendees remembered the horse and buggy era while sixty years later at the time of its closure in the age of Millennials, people were anticipating the takeover of driverless cars. The largest crowd seen at the raceway of 6,812 were in attendance on 6 August 1975 while the track betting record of $345,557 was set on 18 May 1986. Various Michigan Sires Stakes races were held at the track between 1982 and 1996.
Jackson Raceway struggled into the nineteen nineties as did many small town tracks with attendances and betting falling annually. Hope appeared in the form of casino gaming which was legalised in Michigan with state race tracks lining up to be involved including Jackson Raceway which in 2005 was taken over by MTR Gaming. Unfortunately racinos were not part of the plan and once known MRT Gaming moved to close the Jackson track. The final race was run on 12 July 2008 after which operations ceased at Jackson Raceway.
After being closed for ten years, Jackson held one final day of exhibition racing to say farewell on 8 July 2018. The twelve non-betting race meeting was held on a Sunday afternoon before an enthusiastic crowd of approximately two thousand fans. Remembering Jackson Harness Raceway grew into a surprisingly big deal.
The exhibition meeting celebration was the brain child of county Parks Commission member Mike Way. For an exhibition meeting the entry of sixty one horses was huge with numerous sponsors, volunteers and familiar harness racing drivers attending the final meeting. Event co-organisers Claudia Davidson and Mike Way expected 2,000 to 3,000 fans to attend the free farewell event but an estimated 6,000 to 7,000 showed up for the dozen two lap races.
The starting gates wings were drawn in for the last time at the Jackson County Fairgrounds at 4:58 pm on Sunday 8 July 2018, when the twelfth and final race on the Remembering Jackson Harness event began. Kany King driven by Jackson’s own Kim Pluta was the winner of the open trot race in 2:03.0 bringing the curtain down on Jackson Raceway. The United States Trotting Association wrote a news article about the track’s exhibition meeting and “the official podcast of harness racing” came to Jackson for the event. Following the next month’s fair (August 2018), Jackson Raceway was scheduled for demolition.
Kalamazoo
There were three major tracks at Kalamazoo over the years but which exact track was in use at any one time is difficult to determine. Horse racing took place over the period 1840 to early 1930’s with Kalamazoo once a notable centre for harness racing. The birthplace of one of the greatest trotting horses in the world, Peter The Great, a prolific and successful sire.
Led by U.S. Senator Charles E. Stuart, in 1858 the National Horse Association of Kalamazoo purchased land on which was built a new one mile National Driving Park (NDP) track. Located on a large parcel of land between what are today Portage, Stockbridge, Cameron and Reed streets in the heart of Kalamazoo’s Edison Neighbourhood. Many of the buildings including the grandstands were constructed by the newly formed partnership of Fredrick Bush and Thomas Paterson being one of firm’s first jobs beginning a long and illustrious tenure in Kalamazoo.
On 15 October 1858 the first racing at the National Driving Park took place with many locals in attendance due to the popularity of horse racing. Local citizens supported their track, many gambling their wages away on the outcome of a race. Over the next three decades the National Driving Park grew in stature until it closure in the late 1880’s.
The most famous horse race ever at NDP occurred on 15 October 1859. In front of a huge crowd, Flora Temple established a new world record of two minutes nineteen and three quarters seconds (T2:19¾US) for trotting one mile. Flora Temple was the first2:20 trotter; her record at Kalamazoo being one of four occasions she set trotters mile records in North America (also set mares and race mile records), her quickest overall. She was followed home in this record run by Princess and Honest Anne.
Many eastern horseracing enthusiasts refused to believe that a 2:20 mile could have been set in the small western township of Kalamazoo, so they challenged the time, stating that the track must have been laid out improperly and that it was not a full mile in length. This debate lasted several years before a well-respected railroad surveyor came to Kalamazoo to measure the track. He found it to be two and a half feet longer than one mile, so Flora Temple’s record of T2:19¾us was made official.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, Kalamazoo was considering its small size, a hotbed for all things equine. As a result of this passionate interest and the generous contributions of a few wealthy backers, Kalamazoo’s racetrack became an important site for trotting races and exhibitions.
“It is known all the world over that the horses of Kalamazoo are not excelled by those of any town in the west.” This was certainly a valid claim in 1867.
Described during its heyday as one of the city’s greatest attractions, the National Driving Park was noted by an observer as, “We see new seats added to the grandstand, a new withdrawing-room for ladies, a new and commodious dining room for officers, judges, members of the press and other invited guests of the association; new stables for horses, a new driving track inside the rail for those persons in their carriages who do not chose to remain stationary — in fact we see the park is to be made perfect, if perfection can be reached…”
The longest of Kalamazoo’s new streetcar lines connected downtown to the National Driving Park in 1884 providing a new and exciting way for fans to visit the Park’s grounds. The end was near for this version of racetrack at Kalamazoo when in 1886 the last official race was held at the National Driving Park. The grounds were often used for other events which included having Civil War units trained there; the State Fair being held there in 1871 and 1872 and the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show visited in 1898.
The National Driving Park land was purchased by a group of investors including Francis B. Stockbridge, Lorenzo Egleston and Charles B Hays and subdivided into a residential neighbourhood at the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth century. Grand Circuit racing took place on a later track at Kalamazoo over a two decade period between 1912 and 1929 with many famous horses of the period racing there.
Lansing
Lansing is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan where harness racing was undertaken at least in the 1890’s.
Muskegon Racecourse
The Muskegon Race Course opened on 10 May 1989 becoming Michigan’s second harness racing track built in three years. The main track was a five eights mile harness racing oval (580 ft straight), later with thoroughbred chutes of seven furlongs and one and one eighth miles.
The track located a few miles southeast of Muskegon on the shores of Lake Michigan, had a glass enclosed grandstand seating 7,000, clubhouse seating 3,500 with parking for 3,500 vehicles. Racing through the summer months, stakes offered averaged a thousand dollars with Michigan Sire stake races being a feature. Year round simulcasting was authorized in Michigan in 1995. After just six meetings in 1997, Muskegon Raceway closed suddenly.
The Muskegon track was rebuilt, renamed Great Lakes Downs and reopened as Michigan’s only thoroughbred race track on 23 April 1999. Great Lakes Downs gained national attention in 2000 when it was purchased by the Magna group who were buying race tracks all over the country. A track record attendance of 4.427 fans were on course at the 6 May 2000 meeting while betting records were established on 15 May 2000 with $966,732 bet.
The Muskegon oval and Great Lakes Downs closed following the 6 November 2007 thoroughbred meeting. The track buildings were demolished on 9 September 2009. In 2020 the grounds are still there but the grandstand and barns are gone. Several attempts to put a casino on the site have failed although there are still plans to build a casino there. The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians who purchased the site were challenged by three other tribes who own casino’s, effectively blocking the building of their casino at Great Lakes Downs.
Northcoast Raceway
The former half mile Northcoast Raceway pari-mutuel track in Escanaba was located at Upper Peninsula State Fairgrounds. The track hosted a Michigan Sires Stakes event for 3yo colts in 1988.
It was in April 1927 that the city of Escanaba was designated as the location for the Upper Peninsula State Fair by then Michigan Governor Fred Green. Governor Green signed Act 89 which stated “An annual state fair at the City of Escanaba, which shall have for its main purpose the exploiting, and encouragement of improved methods in agriculture and industrial pursuits I hereby authorize.”
Act 89 allocated the funds necessary for the construction of exhibit buildings, livestock shelters, grandstand and racetrack. The opening day of the first Upper Peninsula State Fair was 17 September 1928. The week’s activities included horse racing, cow calling contest, horseshoe pitching, carnival rides, circus and vaudeville acts.
Sports Creek Raceway (SPC)
Sports Creek Raceway was a five eighths mile (550 ft straight) harness track located on a one hundred acre site in Swartz Creek, about ten miles west of Flint. One of three harness tracks to open in Michigan in the nineteen eighties, the others being Saginaw Valley Downs and Muskegon Racecourse. A track record crowd of 6,011 fans attended the tracks opening night on 5 November 1986. The track eventually employed one hundred workers on live racing days with forty working on simulcast days.
The track featured a glass enclosed grandstand with capacity for 4,500, a clubhouse that seated 2,000 including a dining room seating 480 and car parking for 2.400 vehicles. Racing in the winter months Sports Creek traditionally closed out the live racing year and commenced a new season of Michigan harness racing. At one time along with Northville Downs and Hazel Park, year round harness racing was provided in Michigan. Simulcasting featured year round.
A record $626.752 was bet on 14 March 1990. Driver Daniel Rathka was killed in an accident at the track on 11 February 1994. The city received about $425,000 a year from betting dollars until 1993 when Michigan governor John Engler reduced cash flow from the casinos for two years until a new distribution formula in the mid-2000’s allowed the state to pay less, around $120,000. Various Michigan Sires Stakes divisions were raced at Sports Creek between 1987 and 2009.
With Sports Creek being a non racino venue its live racing dates were cut to only sixteen in 2011 meaning horseman began thinking it would be best to look elsewhere to race. The same year Brad Kramer and Kody Massey each had twenty nine victories tying them for the Sports Creek driving crown.
The following year, 2012, Sports Creek was granted a few more dates but only raced twice weekly running sixteen races at each meeting making up for the fewer dates. In 2013, Sports Creek’s betting numbers were $676,106 from live racing and $15.3 million from simulcast betting. With revenues declining since 1998, Sports Creek was forced to close permanently at the end of 2014.
Sports Creek provided only ten days of standardbred racing in 2014, from 28 November until 31 December. The track was filled to capacity for its final night of harness racing on New Year’s Eve 31 December 2014. Two Ohio based drivers Ron Wrenn Jr. and Aaron Merriman battled for the 2014 North American driver’s title with Wrenn recording six wins on the card to win the drivers crown (Wrenn finished with 847 wins, six more than Merriman).
The Flint Journal’s website, mlive.com, reported that Sports Creek Raceway which opened in November 1986 was going out of business. The Michigan racetrack has been shut down since 1 January 2015 following a cease-and-desist order from the Michigan Gaming Control Board as a result of a lack of a signed contract with the Michigan Harness Horsemen’s Association (MHHA). The Association approached the raceway general manager about purchasing the track and claimed that they were rebuffed due to the owners not wanting it’s used again as a race track. General manager Chris Locking claimed that was false as it would have been the quickest way to get it back in use.
Starting in November 2016 General Motors used the raceway’s parking lots for storage of trucks awaiting shipment. The raceway was purchased by AmRace and Sports LLC In October 2018. In 2020 the Michigan Gaming Control Board denied Sports Creek Raceway permits for live racing and simulcasting in 2021 saying the track owner’s application lacked the necessary information. Whilst the decision could be appealed, it represents another setback for the track sold to AmRace & Sports LLC in 2018 and closed since 2015. Under its new ownership since 2018, the track was licensed to race thoroughbreds in both 2019 and 2020 but did not do so. It seems unlikely that a racino licence will be forthcoming in Michigan.
Next Article : Californian tracks – part one
Peter Craig
14 December 2022
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
Driving The Future Of Harness Racing
