from the Western OTB marketing dept.

Batavia, NY — Western Regional Off-Track Betting will be sending one person to the National Harness Handicapping Championship (NHHC) to be held at the Meadowlands Racetrack on April 25.

This year, 31 OTB branches will host qualifying contests that will take place on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and on one Sunday afternoon. The first contest takes place on March 4 and the last chance to qualify for the Batavia Finals is March 25.

“It really will be March Madness at OTB with so many contests taking place within such a short period of time,” said Martin Biniasz, OTB Director of Marketing. “But with the way Palm and Easter Sunday fall this year, there wasn’t much we could do.”

“These contests give our harness players a chance to showcase their skills,” said Todd Haight, Batavia Downs track analyst. “We certainly have many top harness handicappers at our branches.”

“Some changes were made at the request of our patrons,” according to Hank Nevins, OTB Director of Public Relations. “The first change patrons will see is what time they can register to play. Many contests will have a noon registration. Our daytime players asked for the change because they don’t come back to the branch at night and we did our best to accommodate them.”

Another change is how many patrons from each branch will qualify for the Batavia Downs finals. In the past, the top three finishers from each OTB branch made the Batavia finals, but not this year. The winner of the Batavia Finals represents OTB in the national finals.

“We didn’t feel it was fair that only three patrons made the finals from some our bigger branches so we are invoking the 1 for 8 rule. One person will qualify for the finals for every 8 that play. This way at a branch like Wehrle Drive in Buffalo that typically gets between 50 and 70 participants, they would now send from 6 to 10 people to the finals,” Nevins said.

The Batavia Finals will be held on Sunday afternoon, March 29. The top 10 finishers in that contest will receive prizes with the winner getting entry into the NHHC, two nights hotel accommodations and $400 in spending money.

All Wednesday, Friday and Saturday contests will be a combination of Buffalo Raceway and the Meadowlands while the Sunday contest will be exclusively on the Meadowlands.

The Wednesday contests will consist of races 1-5 at the Meadowlands and 8-12 at Buffalo while the Friday and Saturday contests will consist of races 1-5 at the Meadowlands and races 3-7 at Buffalo.

Like last year patrons will receive points on where their selections finish but now are required to select one Best Bet per track, for which they will receive double points.

The winner at each OTB branch will take home a $25 betting voucher but at the OTB branches that have a 5:45 p.m. registration, the winner will win an additional $25 betting voucher if he or she is present when the final scores are posted.

A complete list of OTB qualifying locations and starting times are online at www.westernotb.com and are posted in all Western OTB branches.