Horsepeople and racing fans are reminded that heading into November live racing will be conducted on a three-night-per-week basis, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, through December 3

.

First-race post time is 6:40 p.m., except for November 5, when there will be a special 7:10 p.m. first-race post time, to accommodate the Breeders' Cup classic

A purse reduction will take place on November 2 at Batavia Downs.

Purse money for the final 15 race dates of the 2011 summer-fall meet will be reduced by 10 per cent across the board, track officials announced today.

“Nobody wants to cut purses but we simply need to right the ship heading into next year,” said Todd Haight, the track's general manager of Live Racing. “We ended the 2010 season with an overpayment of purses and if we aren’t proactive we’d have been in the same boat this year.

“We met with Bruce (Tubin, president of the Western New York Harness Horsemen's Association) and all agreed this was the best course of action. Hopefully this will be the only correction that needs to be made. Moving forward, with expansion of our gaming floor taking place over the winter, we should be in a much better position when the horses return in July of 2012.”

(Batavia)