by Charlene Polk, USTA Web Newsroom Senior Correspondent

Fort Washington, MD — After more than 50 years of harness racing, Rosecroft Raceway held what might have been its final night of live racing on June 28, 2008.

The track, once the place to find the best racing in Maryland, was racing just two nights a week in 2008 for about $30,000 a night in purses. The track closed a few months after a deal to sell it fell through, but simulcasting continues as the facility tries to stay afloat.

The closure of the five-eighths-mile oval, Maryland’s only year-round harness racetrack, has forced many of the state’s horsemen to relocate or even get out of the business. While some have moved to other racetracks, others are in the process of selling off their stock.

Though the summer meet at Ocean Downs and the two months of racing at Colonial Downs (in Virginia) have given the Rosecroft regulars a place to race up until now, horsemen know they have only been prolonging the inevitable.

Justin Brenneman, a 19-year-old trainer and driver who has grown up racing in Maryland, plans on selling his horses, mostly $3,000 claimers, as soon as Colonial’s meet ends since there are few places such horses can go.

“I’ve got nowhere to race,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. Probably go work for somebody.”

Jason Walters, another campaigner of veteran claimers, says he will sell his as well.

That seems to be the trend, as even the dynamic duo of John Wagner and Manley Brown, Jr. have already begun to sell horses.

“I sold a lot of the cheaper horses,” Wagner said. “I’ll send the better ones to Canada. I’ll probably just break some colts.”

Lisa and Kelly Staten, familiar faces at Rosecroft for the last 10 years, have given up on Maryland racing altogether. The couple purchased a farm in Pennsylvania earlier this year, when the sale of Rosecroft to Penn Maryland LLC fell through.

Frank Milby, Rosecroft’s leading driver, will really miss racing at the Fort Washington oval, the place he earned his first driving title.

“That’s where I had all my fun,” he said. “I’d go two nights a week and win a bunch of races.”

Although many have already given up hope of staying in Maryland and racing horses, not all have. William Long and Gerald Kelly, both respected Rosecroft horsemen, hope the state’s Nov. 4 slots referendum will turn things around. Kelly is one of the trainers struggling to keep the Rosecroft backstretch open for training.

“We have to maintain the backstretch,” Kelly said. “We’re trying to keep 100 horses there. Right now we have about 65.”

The track will need a significant number of horses stabled on the grounds to make enough money to pay the roughly $400,000 a year it costs to maintain the backstretch, according to Cloverleaf Director Jerry Nock.

He says the entire situation, especially in today’s economic times, have put a strain on local horsemen.

“It’s a burden on all the horsemen right now,” he said. “It’s really getting tough on us.”

Rosecroft is scheduled to be closed until 2010. Occasional qualifiers and Maryland’s remaining sire stakes races (non-betting) will be held, however.