Charles F. Sarkis, 78, a highly successful Boston restaurateur who later went into the racing business and was the last owner of the Foxboro Park harness track (formerly known as Bay State Raceway, New England Harness and Foxboro Raceway) passed away on Sunday, March 11 after a prolonged fight with a brain tumour which was first diagnosed in 1995.
Sarkis first entered the racing scene when he purchased Wonderland Greyhound Park in Revere, Mass., in 1977. The track had many years of successful greyhound meets, but in a 2008 referendum Massachusetts voters cast their ballots to ban the sport, and Wonderland, which opened in 1935, ran its last race on September 18, 2009. Sarkis then turned his attention to Thoroughbred and harness racing when he leased what was originally called Bay State Raceway and changed the name to Foxboro Park.
In 1992, Sarkis was granted 72 dates for the Thoroughbreds to be run from May-September and harness racing dates to be run from September-December. The Thoroughbred meet was a failure due in part to an equine virus that hit the horses and limited the amount of entries to short fields. Only 35 of the dates were run.
Harness racing took over the track for several years, but another problem hit Sarkis when litigation between he and Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and Gillette Stadium which is located near the track, took place and Sarkis lost that lawsuit. The Foxboro track ran its last harness race in the summer of 1997, fifty years after the track opened.
Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Charles Sarkis.
(Bob Temple)