By Jeff Henson

HORSE RACING

Local horse racing season set to kick off this Saturday

Jul 5, 2023 | 5:07 PM

A summertime tradition at Evergreen Park is set to kick off this weekend as another season of horse racing returns to the park.

Racing goes every Saturday and Sunday at 1:15 p.m. until the end of August at JDA Raceway.

Evergreen Park Assistant General Manager Denise Cook feels horse racing has a significant impact within our region.

“We have our horse population people that live here. We probably have approximately 300 people on site for the full two months. So they are always in the city and enjoying the shopping and some of the amenities. They go to the pool and golfing and all of those other kinds of activities.”

Horse owners, trainers, and other staff come from across Alberta and as far south as the United States for the racing season.

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Cook adds once again this year, there will be a number of special events to coincide with the weekly race cards.

“We have the night marking going one of the weekends in July as well as a weekend in August. Hopefully, that will expose some new people to horse racing, and get some horse racing people over to the market.”

“We are really looking forward to our third annual wiener dog derby, along with Derby Day and our Baconfest, and then we end the season with Paint the Park Purple.”

There will also be over 20 stakes races over the course of t summer.

Cook adds the Evergreen Park Racing Club is also back, stronger than ever, for another season.

“It is something that was done in the bigger cities and so we tried it here and the community really enjoys it. The members have really grasp onto the concept of being honorary horse owners. Each year we try to add more things to get them involved. I think they have a record number of memberships – I know that they are over 100 this year.”

There is no admission fee to attend the races.