Curtain closes on another successful Dayton season

The curtain has fallen on Dayton Raceway’s 10th harness racing season, with records all around. Five track records were tied or broken, a repeat driving champion was crowned, the all-time single day handle record was set, and 2023 saw an increase in total handle for the 5th straight year.

Starting off with new track records, the track crew, led by Track Super Jim Shelton, had the racing surface extremely sharp all year and it didn’t take long into the meet to start setting new marks as the first 3 fell on Dayton Derby night. Tattoo Artist set a new mark for aged horses at 1:48 while winning the Dayton Pacing Derby and Hillexotic would set a new mark for aged geldings by winning the Dayton Trotting Derby in 1:51.1.

In the Buckeye Stallion Series final for filly trotters, Justasiam As would shatter the old mark in crossing the line in 1:54.4. In December, not exactly a well-known track record breaking month, we saw two records tied. Art Scaping tied the aged gelding mark at 1:49 and Dover In Motion tied the 4YO gelding mark of 1:52.1.

Jeremy Smith picked up where he left off, defending his Driving title in 2022 by repeating in 2023. Jeremy, who was sidelined the first 5 weeks of the meet while recovering from surgery, spotted his rivals nearly 150 starts. On December 7th, he still trailed by 14 wins, and by December 29th, he had clinched the title being 22 wins ahead at that time. He won at nearly a 30% clip in December to accomplish that feat. He finished the meet with 143 wins, 25 wins clear of 2nd place Dan Noble.

On the training side of things, the Burke Brigade finished out the meet with 37 wins to edge out last year’s training champion, Jason Brewer, by just 2 wins. It’s the 2nd title for the Burke barn in the last 3 years. Ron’s $713,455 in earnings also topped the meet.

Handle at the track saw an increase for the 5th straight year. In 2018, all source handle checked in at $18.3 million. This year, a new record of $33.5 million was achieved for an increase of 83% over 2018 and 9.4 % over 2022. Dayton also saw a single night record fall handling $1.286 million on December 28th, just one year after setting the previous mark of $1.272 million.

From Hollywood Dayton Raceway