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For North East race horse owner, Kathy Antus, a track this close to home is great.  Antus says "for the last 2 years, even 3 years we've been doing leg work at home.  Legging the horses up on the farm and then to do any speed work to develop wind or in the case of the young horses to get gate cards we would have to either call to Cleveland, which is 2 hours each way or down to West Virginia."

For Antus, not only is having a track closer to home a benefit but Presque Isle Down is expected to attract better classes of horses than Erie has ever seen before.  Antus says "I expect the calibur of race horse to be very good."

The 25-night stretch of races will begin on the track on September 1, 2007.  Antus says "this particular one month meet falls at a break at some of the larger tracks like Saratoga ans some tracks in Kentucky don't open until late in September."

Jennifer See of Presque Isle Downs says that because other tracks are shut down during their race stretch, Erie can expect to see a lot of big named horses come to town.  See says "the way the purses are set up and established it's going to draw a lot of big name trainers."

See Says it's expected that several horses could run the Presque Isle Downs track as a tune up for October's Breeder's Cup at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, New Jersey.