$1 million to PA stakes

Both the Pennsylvania Sire Stakes and the Pennsylvania Standardbred Breeders Development Fund each have received over $1 million this year in funding from the newly-introduced slot machine games in the state. The $1 million (actual count after Sunday: $1,000,115) was reached in each category despite the fact that only one track, Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs, was online the entire period; Pennsylvania’s other harness track currently hosting slots, Harrah’s Chester, started their action in late January.

Add The Meadows to the slots mix in late May, and eventually a fourth harness track with slots in the western part of the state – and Pennsylvania will be among the sport’s leaders in rewarding the breeding and racing of champion Standardbreds.

“The Sire Stakes and the Standardbred Breeders Development Fund are the crown jewels of Pennsylvania harness racing,” proclaimed Anton J. Leppler, executive secretary of the Pennsylvania Harness Commission, which oversees both programs within the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture with an administrative cost savings of more $1 million dollars. “We look for both quantity and quality to keep growing in our programs, providing the Pennsylvania standardbred community with the best racetrack excitement it has ever seen, and also giving a big boost to the state agri-economy.”

The moneys being amassed in 2007 will be paid out in 2008: sometime in the first quarter for the Breeders Fund, based on eligible horses’ performance on state tracks in 2007, and throughout the year in the 2008 Pennsylvania Sire Stakes. (Pennsylvania Sire Stakes press release)

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