Hastings Wrap up for 2011
What seemed like the fastest 69 days in racing history the Hastings Racecourse 2011 season came to end on Sunday afternoon with one of the best days of racing of the year.
The handle was more then double compared to the closing day in 2010 and field size was a whopping 9.64 horse per race on the last day.
Hamel wins second straight riding title
Richard Hamel won his second straight riding title ending the season with 88 wins, 75 seconds and 61 thirds from 433 mounts, with total earnings of $1,215,280.00. Hamel was in a battle with Mario Gutierrez all season which came down to the last day. Gutierrez finished second with 85 wins, 61 seconds and 43 thirds from only 286 mounts with earnings of $1,450,632.00. Hamel rode 147 more races then Gutierrez.
Amadeo Perez came on late and finished third with 69 wins, 59 seconds and 58 thirds from 427 mounts.
Troy Taylor at age 80 wins fifth straight training title
The wily old veteran Troy Taylor won his fifth straight trainers title finishing the season with 53 wins, 43 seconds and 23 thirds from 172 starts. Taylors horses won a total of $1,019,770.00. Craig MacPherson finished second with 28 wins from 133 starts and winnings of $416,070.00 which was two better then Dino Condilenios and Terry Clyde who finished in a tie for third with 26 wins which was one better then Elizabeth Stolzenberg who finished 5th with 25 wins and an incredible win percentage of 38%.
Todd and Kinsella win fifth owners title in a row
The team of Glen Todd and Patrick Kinsella won their 5th owners title in a row with 58 wins and a 36% win percentage totaling $1,039,387.00. This year they had horses with 3 different trainers at Hastings with horses with John Morrison, Elizabeth Stolzenberg and their head trainer Troy Taylor.
Swift Thoroughbreds Inc. finished second with 26 wins which has far ahead of the several others who won a total of 8 races to finish 3rd.
Over $9,200,000.00 paid out in Purses
The total purse pool payout was $9,206,181.00, which consisted of $230,000.00 from Sponsorship of Stake Races, a total of $765,950.00 from nomination fees and balance from the allocation of funds from the Horse Racing Management Committee. The total paid out to BC Breds was $848,274.00 and $401,507.00 to 6-12 finishers.
The total handle was up approximately 5% over 2010 on the live racing at Hastings after starting the season down approximately 17% early in the meet by the end of June. We made an amazing comeback the last 3 months of the season.
The total number of horses per start was down from 7.57 in 2010 to 7.22 in 2011 but after the $600.00 per start was implemented on August 6th the average came up to 7.75 horses per race.
In total we ran 69 days compared to 71 in 2010 and ran a total of 550 races with 3969 starters.
Racing Dates for 2012 Announced
Hastings announced the 2012 racing dates last week and we will start on April 14 racing 71 racing days to close on Thanksgiving Day, October 14th.