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Charles Town is a racetrack and casino facility which is located 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 daily operations are overseen by the Penn National Gaming. They bought the facility back in 1997.

Charles Town is home to among the tiniest racetracks in the US, with a six-furlong oval track often leading to races held over the four-and-a-half and five furlongs. It is referred to as standard dirt, and there are currently no plans to develop a turf course.

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

The track possesses a modern gambling establishment, which was the first to be built in West Virginia. Sports betting has actually been offered at this place since August 2018.

There is likewise a 153-room hotel on-site. The track also possesses a grass enclosed grandstand and clubhouse, with the previous having the ability to seat up to 3,500 spectators.

Racing happens 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 vacation season before recommencing in mid-January. It was the first East Coast track to hold live racing throughout the winter months.

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

The track holds a variety of important stakes races throughout the season, with the West Virginia Breeders Classic being the standout contest. This occasion pays over $500,000 to the winning connections, while the overall bag for the day has actually just recently risen above the million-dollar mark.

Charles Town Racetrack History

Charles Town opened in 1933 and became the 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 invested $160,000 in order to get the venue as much as scratch and to ensure that the West Virginia venue was fit to phase winter season racing. Despite a variety of naysayers recommending that Charles Town would have a hard time to get visitors through the door, the track saw numbers increase over the first years regardless of the perilously cold conditions.

Hall of popularity jockey Bill Hartack was a regular at the track throughout the early days, and he set a variety of performance history - much of which still stand today. He once rode 24 winners throughout Charles Town's 24-day winter satisfy.

John F. Kennedy and his wife went to the track in 1960 as part of their governmental project.

In 1969, Barbara Jo Ruben ended up being 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 extraordinary career and was welcomed 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 added to the calendar quickly after the re-opening.

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

The track was purchased by Penn National Gaming in 1997, and they carried out a $175,000,000 upgrade of the facilities.They developed 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 available to older horses running over a mile and one eighth. Researcher won the very first two renewals of this contest.With a prize purse of over $1 million, the race continues to bring in a high-quality field and is among the richest contests in the US.

Charles Town Track Configuration and Bias

When the track trips fast (which happens throughout the bulk of the summertime), this often impedes closers. The fast dirt at Charles Town tends to allow frontrunners to get enough utilize to win wire-to-wire, and this is an essential facet of summer racing in West Virginia.

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

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

Stalls 3 and seven were also relatively efficient, with 14.4 and 14.6 percent of horses beginning here going into the winner's enclosure, respectively.

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

In path races, the inside stalls likewise produced the greatest number of winners. Stall 2 had 18.6 percent of the winners, while the inside position yielded 17.6 percent of all winning thoroughbreds. Stall five showed a relatively bad return of just over 10 percent, while only one of the 12 runners starting in stall 9 got in the winner's enclosure.

Neither of the 2 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 place takes a little break for the holiday before racing returns at the start of the calendar year. Racing typically occurs Thursday-Sunday although they frequently stage extra cards on Thanksgiving and Labor Day.

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

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