HOT SPRINGS - Oaklawn Park completed its 53-day live season Saturday with on-track business holding almost steady compared to 2013, but substantial growth off track and a record purse distribution.
“All in all, it was a good season,” Oaklawn General Manager Eric Jackson said.
The weather-shortened meeting saw a fractional increase in average daily attendance (10,357) and a 2.2-percent dip in average daily on-track mutuel handle ($730,509).
But average daily offtrack handle rose 25.5 percent ($2,560,120), fueling an 18-percent increase in average daily total handle ($3,290,629).
The hefty off-track spike coincided with Oaklawn beefing up its wagering menu, its races returning to TVG, the Los Angeles-based horse racing channel, and the introduction of OaklawnAnywhere, which allows Arkansas residents to bet on races throughout the country via the Internet.
“Our business outside Arkansas was fantastic,” Jackson said.
Purses averaged a record $402,701 per day, a 15.8 percent increase over last year’s record $347,796.
Purses were raised twice during the 2014 meeting.
Oaklawn’s purse structure has skyrocketed in recent years because of the continued success of skill-based electronic gaming at the track.
A portion of EGS revenue is earmarked for purses.
Jackson said he is “very optimistic” that purses will be even higher in 2015.
“I don’t know of a track that’s in a better position than we are right now in America,” Jackson said.
Construction began Monday at Oaklawn on a 50-percent expansion of space dedicated to electronic skill-based games, a project at the south end of the building scheduled to be completed around Thanksgiving, Jackson said.
The 2014 season averages are based on 51 racing days because Oaklawn lost an entire week of racing to harsh winter weather (Feb. 6-9) and two partial cards (Feb. 2 and March 2).
Two of Oaklawn’s biggest draws, opening day and Rebel Stakes day, were impacted by rain. No attendance was announced Feb. 2 and March 2 when the cards were scrapped because of deteriorating weather and track conditions.
Oaklawn was scheduled to race 57 days this season.
Jackson said there is no “perfect way” to compare 2014 figures against 54 racing dates in 2013, but 51 dates “gets us close to apples-to-apples.”
Prolonged bad weather kept track maintenance crews under the gun most of the season.
Jackson said crews spent six consecutive nights on the surface in February to keep it from freezing, adding Oaklawn exhausted its supply of approximately “1,000 tungsten steel harrow teeth” after they had been “ground down to a nub” because of nonstop use.
“It was just one of those weather years,” Jackson said. “Everybody in America has been hit by it, many places worse than us.”
Oaklawn is scheduled to race 57 days in 2015 (Jan. 9-April 11). The Jan. 9 opening would be the earliest in Oaklawn history.
Sports, Pages 19 on 04/15/2014