Charles Town Picks

Charles Town is a racetrack and gambling establishment facility which lies in Charles Town, West Virginia. It is around 60 miles from Baltimore and roughly 10 miles from the historic Harpers Ferry.


It is currently owned by Gaming and Leisure Properties, and the everyday operations are overseen by the Penn National Gaming. They purchased the center back in 1997.


Charles Town is home to among the tiniest racetracks in the US, with a six-furlong oval track often resulting in races held over the four-and-a-half and five furlongs. It is explained as conventional dirt, and there are currently no strategies to construct a grass course.


The primary track has a width of 60 feet and has a four-and-a-half furlong chute, which permits path races to be held at CharlesTown.


The track possesses an advanced casino, which was the first to be integrated in West Virginia. Sports wagering has actually been offered at this location given that August 2018.


There is likewise a 153-room hotel on-site. The track also has a grass enclosed grandstand and clubhouse, with the previous being able to seat as much as 3,500 spectators.


Racing takes location all-year-round at Charles Town with live race-days generally happening Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The track takes a time-out around the holiday season before recommencing in mid-January. It was the first East Coast track to hold live racing during the winter season.


Charles Town only hosts Thoroughbred racing at the track. There are currently no plans to introduce Quarter Horse contests.


The track holds a number of important stakes races throughout the season, with the West Virginia Breeders Classic being the standout contest. This event pays over $500,000 to the winning connections, while the general purse for the day has recently increased above the million-dollar mark.


Charles Town Racetrack History


Charles Town opened in 1933 and ended up being the very first pari-mutuel wagering track in West Virginia. The first live race-day was staged on December 2 and was organized by Albert Boyle of the Shenandoah Valley Jockey Club.


The owners spent $160,000 in order to get the place approximately scratch and to ensure that the West Virginia venue was fit to stage winter season racing. Despite a variety of cynics suggesting that Charles Town would struggle to get visitors through the door, the track saw numbers increase over the very first years in spite of the perilously cold conditions.


Hall of fame jockey Bill Hartack was a regular at the track during the early days, and he set a number of track records - many of which still stand today. He as soon as rode 24 winners throughout Charles Town's 24-day winter satisfy.


John F. Kennedy and his wife checked out the track in 1960 as part of their presidential campaign.


In 1969, Barbara Jo Ruben became the very first female jockey to win a pari-mutuel race in the US, with the 19-year-old guidingCohesion home by half-a-length. She went on to have an unbelievable career and was invited back to the track in 2019 to mark the anniversary of the event.


The track closed for 2 weeks in 1979 with all horsemen asked to leave the facilities, although racing soon recommenced, with Sunday being contributed to the calendar right after the re-opening.


The first running of the West Virginia Breeders' Classic was held at the track and was by NFL Hall of Famer Sam Huff.The inaugural reward purse included $100,000 and was won by local raider Onion Juice.


The track was purchased by Penn National Gaming in 1997, and they performed a $175,000,000 upgrade of the facilities.They built new barns and opened a multi-million dollar simulcast center.


The Charles Town Classic was held for the very first time in 2009, with inaugural race open up to older horses running over a mile and one eighth. Researcher won the very first 2 renewals of this contest.With a reward purse of over $1 million, the race continues to draw in a top quality field and is among the richest contests in the US.


Charles Town Track Configuration and Bias


When the track trips quickly (which happens throughout most of the summer season), this often prevents closers. The fast dirt at Charles Town tends to enable frontrunners to get enough leverage to win wire-to-wire, and this is an essential facet of summer season racing in West Virginia.


Frontrunners typically struggle when the rain has boiled down, and the track is riding sloppy.


There has actually been a lot of racing at CharlesTown in 2019, and the statistics suggest that there is a fairly even divided when it concerns post positions. In sprint races, the inside positions have the edge, with stalls one and 2 producing 15.8 and 15.9 percent of the winners, respectively.


Stalls three and 7 were also relatively efficient, with 14.4 and 14.6 percent of horses starting here going into the winner's enclosure, respectively.


Stall nine was the poorest starting position, with simply 11 of the 169 runners being drawn in this slot managing to secure victory (6.5 percent).


In route races, the inside stalls also produced the greatest number of winners. Stall two had 18.6 percent of the winners, while the within position yielded 17.6 percent of all winning thoroughbreds. Stall 5 revealed a fairly bad return of simply over 10 percent, while just one of the 12 runners starting in stall nine got in the winner's enclosure.


Neither of the two horses who began in stall 10 were initially to pass the post.


Charles Town Racing Season


Charles Town is one of a handful of tracks in the US to host year-round racing. The West Virginia location takes a small break for the holiday before racing returns at the beginning of the fiscal year. Racing normally takes location Thursday-Sunday although they frequently stage extra cards on Thanksgiving and Labor Day.


There are a variety of stakes races held at the track and these command decent-size purses. The standout races consist of the Charles Town Mile and the West Virginia Breeders' Classic.