Opening Day at Woodbine

Dateline: 04/03/00

Racing returned to Woodbine on April Fool's Day with a card of ten 5 furlong sprints. Things got off to a bit of a rocky start with a disqualification in the first race on the card, but things are looking good for this year thanks to extra purse money from the newly installed slot machines that took over the entire first floor of the grandstand. Their $100 million rennovation project is nearly complete and the facility is looking very nice now, although the front (shown above) is a tad on the glitzy side with a huge screen showing continuous ads for the new slots. Although the races went off smoothly with only a few first day gltches, the slots were another story.

A lonely Northern Dancer stands guard over the long lines to get in the slot machine area

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The slots are not run by the track, they only give them the space in the facility while the Ontario Lottery Corporation manages the slot machine operations and returns a portion of the take to the track in exchange. There were long lines waiting to get in even though there were fewer than the rated capacity of 5100 people and even some slot machines with nobody at them. Officials are still trying to work out the glitches in their admission system but hopefully they will get this improved soon. One positive side effect of the long waits to get in to the slots was that some of the patrons decided to try the horses instead.

Trainer Phil England, jockey David Clark, and owner Steve Stavro after winning the La Voyageuse

The first stakes race of the season was the La Voyageuse Stakes for the older fillies and mares. It was won by Saoirse, a nice filly owned by Steve Stavro, owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and trained by Phil England. They also teamed up to win the Canadian International with 1999 Canadian Horse of the Year Thornfield.

Pgm  Horse              Jockey            Win   Place  Show
 1   Saoirse            Clark            4.90    3.50  2.90
 2   Julie's Witt       Sabourin                 8.30  4.80
 3   Big City Dream     McKnight                       4.80

Winning Time:  0:57 2/5

$2 Exacta 1-2             44.00
$2 Trifecta 1-2-3        216.80

Saoirse winning the La Voyageuse Stakes by 3 3/4 lengths.

Tbe winning connections pose after the race with Saoirse in the winner's circle.

More on opening day from Slam! Sports.

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