Miami Valley Raceway, in southwest Ohio, will open its eighth season of harness racing on the afternoon of Jan. 3, 2021.
It has been almost 9-1/2 months since the five-eighths-mile oval has hosted harness races as a result of the premature 2020 shutdown due to the COVID pandemic, but the track is ready to resume where it left off.
Miami Valley features one of the highest purse structures in the industry with an average of over $150,000 offered on each program. The regular five-day schedule will include 2:05 p.m. matinees on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays, and twilight cards starting at 4:05 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.
“We have shifted to an earlier weekend post time on an experimental basis during January due to the 10 p.m. curfew currently imposed in Ohio, plus positive feedback from both patrons and horsemen to a similar experiment at Dayton Raceway recently,” said race secretary Gregg Keidel.
The highlights of the first month of the meet will be nine late-closing “Claim To Fame” series ranging in base claiming value from $8,000 to $30,000. Series are available for male and female pacers as well as trotters.
Entry blanks for the “Claim To Fame” series, as well as others later in the meet, are available online. Ship-in applications, purse request forms and other pertinent racing information can be retrieved in the same manner.
There will be a double draw for both Jan. 3 and 4 on Dec. 30, with the box closing at 10 a.m. Condition sheets for the first week of the 2021 Miami Valley meet are now available on the USTA website.
(Miami Valley Raceway)