Pandemic shuts down Tri-Cities horse racing for a 2nd season
Normally, this is the time of year that local horse racing fans go out the Benton County Fairgrounds to bet on races.
This is the second consecutive year the races haven’t been held. The pandemic also forced the cancellation last year.
COVID is once again keeping the races from happening, said Nancy Sorick, the president of the Tri-Cities Horse Racing Association — the group who puts on the event for three consecutive weekends.
“The county decided in January that there would be no events at the fairgrounds at all,” Sorick said.
Even if there could be, it wouldn’t work with the state maximums put on attendance at outdoor events.
“We have to have a certain amount of people out there to make this work,” Sorick said.
The TCHRA doesn’t have access to closed-circuit wagering. Instead, it has live wagering only, and without enough people there to get that daily wagering handle where it needs to be, the track would run at a bigger loss than normal.
“Emerald Downs is looking at the same thing we are,” Sorick said. “They are running with no fans.”
The difference, she said, is that Emerald Downs has closed-circuit wagering.
The recent placement of a vaccine center at the fairgrounds parking lot, where fans usually park for the races, was the final blow for any chance at racing.
Normally, the track would be open around Feb. 1 to allow trainers to exercise their horses, who would be occupying the stables and barns on the back side of the track.
After the annual meet at Sun Downs, those trainers would then take their horses all over to tracks in the Northwest and Canada.
Sorick said that she finally had to tell the horsemen they needed to go find a different place to train for this year.
There is some good news, though. Sorick said the TCHRA and the county have agreed to a three-year deal for future races. That’s the longest deal agreed to between the two parties.
Sorick said she knows the horsemen (and horsewomen) will be back in 2022.
“They’ll come because we’re the first guy in town,” Sorick said. “They’ll come to train, race here, then branch out around the country. The quarter horse group supports us.”
Notes
▪ Royal High School senior quarterback Caleb Christensen recently received a scholarship offer to play at Linfield this coming fall.
Christensen now has five offers. Besides Linfield, Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore.; Virginia Military Academy, Whittier College in California, and Whitworth University have all made him offers.
▪ Whitworth University’s baseball team has five area players on its roster: freshman Riley Cissne (Chiawana); freshman Tim Gee (Kennewick/Walla Walla CC); freshman Jeremiah Kennell (Kamiakin); freshman Aidan Morrison (Southridge), and junior Austin Rice (Irrigon).
The Pirates are 6-17 through games of April 14.
Morrison is second on the team in stolen bases, with six. He is expected to play this summer in the Cascade Collegiate League.
▪ Ryan Dearing (Kamiakin/CBC) went 3-for-4 with a double, scoring two runs, and Spencer Schwehr (Walla Walla CC) picked up the win in relief, as Northwest Nazarene’s baseball team beat Montana State University Billings 11-6 on March 13.
NNU also won three of four contests from Central Washington on March 19-20, and through games of April 8, the Nighthawks are 17-3 overall, and 11-1 in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play.
In a 7-3 win over Central Washington on March 20, Dearing went 3-for-5 with a triple.
In a 3-1 win over CWU later that same day, Dearing went 2-for-3 with a double and stolen base; Schwehr picked up the win, going 5.1 innings, striking out 3, and surrendering no runs; Nick Irwin (Kamiakin) pitched the final out, a strikeout, to earn his first save.
Dearing is batting .438 as the team’s leadoff hitter, and has 9 stolen bases.
▪ Former Tri-City American defenseman Justin Hamonic (with the Ams 2011-15) was planning on starting with the Coventry Blaze this past season. But Hamonic got a call from the Tulsa Oilers of the ECHL, and he’s been with the team since December. The Oilers are 21-21-4-2 in games through April 13, and in 48 contests, Hamonic, 27, has one goal and 11 assists.
▪ MeiLani McBee (Kennewick) played in 16 games for the 9-8 Hawaii women’s basketball team this past season, averaging about 15.1 minutes a game. McBee averaged 3.9 points and 1.1 rebounds a contest, and shot 32 percent (18 for 56) from the 3-point line for the Big West Conference school.
▪ Whitworth football defeated Pacific Lutheran 56-23 on March 13, as running back Gabe Schilz (Chiawana) rushed 5 times for 5 yards for the Pirates. Teammate DB Coltin Chelin (Kamiakin) had 5 tackles. Kord Tuttle (Prosser) helped PLU with 5 tackles.
▪ Junior Carl Underwood (Richland), playing for the University of Wyoming men’s golf team, finished tied for 33rdout of 112 golfers at the Lamkin Grips San Diego Classic March 8-10.
Underwood shot rounds of 73, 75 and 74 for a 6-over-par 222 total on the San Diego Country Club in Chula Vista, Calif.
Freshman Patrick Azevedo (Othello) is also a member of Wyoming’s golf team.
▪ In December, Kennewick High grad Justin Wagar announced his retirement from coaching at Grambling State University, where he led the women’s program. His Tigers teams went 35-26-3 in his three seasons there, and Wagar was the Southwestern Athletic Conference Women’s Soccer Coach of the Year in 2017.
In 18 seasons as a head women’s soccer coach in college, Wagar’s teams went 146-110-20.
▪ Josh Atencio grew up in the Seattle area, but his father Andres graduated from Richland High, and they have family here in the Tri-Cities. Josh Atencio was signed last year by the Seattle Sounders as an 18-year-old midfielder. Last Friday, Atencio started the Sounders’ season opener in a 4-0 win over Minnesota in the team’s Major League Soccer opener.