by Mike Paradise, director of publicity, Maywood Park

MELROSE PARK , IL — Maywood Park , the only Chicagoland racetrack devoted exclusively to live harness racing, begins its 60 consecutive season Thursday. Since 1946 Maywood Park has conducted a live racing meet, the longest in the State of Illinois standardbred history.

After a one-week delay because of horsemen’s strike Maywood Park hosts the first of its 2006 programs on January 12 which will be held every Thursday through April and picked up again from June 22 through the end of the year. The Chicago circuit’s half-miler will also be the site of live standardbred racing every Friday through the same time period.

Our sister track Balmoral Park has live racing through February 18 on Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and day-night double headers on Saturdays. From February 19 through May 3 and again from June 18 through December 31, Balmoral will race Sundays through Wednesdays.

A reminder: This year the first race post nightly has been moved up to 7:20 p.m. (CST) each racing night at both racetracks, except for Sundays ( 6:30 p.m. ) at Balmoral.

Several new series will be raced at both tracks starting in January. Balmoral will host two series for trotters—The Crete and the Champion On Ice. The Big Dog (colts) and the Pacific (fillies) series for open company pacers will be held at both Balmoral and Maywood Parks, as will a pair of Illinois bred series, the Fox Valley (fillies and mares) and the Ideal Society (colts and geldings).

The opening round of the Fox Valley Redhot will share the spotlight on Friday’s Maywood Park card. This series is for ICF distaffers without four victories or $20,000 earned lifetime as of December 1, 2005 .

Seven mares will slug it out in Thursday night’s featured eight race, a $7,000 conditioned pace. The 2-1 morning line favorite is I’mgonnagetchagood, who dropped a neck decision in her last start (December 28). The Jenna’s Beach Boy mare earlier rattled off three consecutive Maywood Park wins.

S S Future (9-2), Silent Win (5-1), Bramblerose (15-1), Go Comand (5-2) Sheryl’s Beach Boy (6-1) and Fridaythethirteenth (10-1) are the eighth race challengers.