Laurel to Swap Three Thursdays for Mondays in November

Laurel Park will swap out three Thursday racing dates for Mondays in November. The request was unanimously approved by a voice vote at the Oct. 4 Maryland Racing Commission meeting.

Mike Rogers, the president of the racing division for the Maryland Jockey Club's Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, told commissioners that the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association was in favor of the switch.

“It's kind of an experiment. We see that handle is a little bit low on the Thursdays, so we're going to see if we can get a little bit of a bump on the handle by shifting to Mondays,” Rogers said. “The sample size is a little bit low, it's only three days, but I think we'll get a little bit of a sense whether the Mondays are successful or not.”

According to the calendar posted on Laurel's website, the three dropped Thursdays are Nov. 3, 10 and 17, making the schedule Fridays through Mondays on those weeks.

The Thanksgiving Day program on Nov. 24 remains intact on the posted schedule. Starting in December, the Laurel schedule had already been slated to revert to three-day racing weeks on a Friday-through-Sunday basis (with the exception of the weekend of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day).