by Keith Gisser, assistant publicity director, Northfield Park

Northfield, OH — With the start of the new year, Northfield Park is changing several admission policies.

Grandstand admission is now free from Sunday through Thursday, including live racing days. There is also free general, preferred and clubhouse preferred parking on those days. Clubhouse admission on Monday and Wednesday has been reduced to $1.25, while Tuesday clubhouse admission is free. Fridays and Saturdays, grandstand admission remains $1.75 and clubhouse admission is still just $3.00.

HOTY finalists: The trustees of Northfield’s Wall of Fame will have a tough time naming the 2006 Horse of the Year.

The four finalists, in alphabetical order, are:

Equalize, a 15-time winner in ’06, who is owned by Mike Foote of Cuyahoga Falls. He has moved up from high-priced claimers to Open competition of late; Key Western, a 12-time winner who also moved up from $10,000 claimers to top class company after being claimed by Daryl Sherman; Paper Branch, who won 20 races in 2006 racing in low level claimers for several different owners. He was named National Claimer of the Year by Harness Eye, the Daily Racing Form’s harness weekly; and Soldier, a $3,000 claiming trotter, who won 8 of 13 starts in 2006, most of them for Kim Sloan. In a remarkable turnaround, Soldier was pulling an Amish Buggy just six months ago.

Merriman, Schillaci take titles: Although aided by Greg Grismore’s decision to split time between Yonkers and Northfield at the end of the month, Aaron Merriman still managed to close a 54 race deficit in December to win the 2006 driving title — his first here — with 497 wins. He won 76 of those races in the last month of the year to unseat the three-time defending champ. Merriman, whose father Lanny still campaigns a solid stable locally, literally grew up on the Northfield backstretch.

The trainer’s race was also very close, with Jodi Schillaci edging Mark Deaton for that title, 140 wins to 134. Merriman was the primary driver for Schillaci, a second-generation trainer who started her career in New York State and moved her operation to Northfield when she was still Jodi Stark. She met trainer-driver Sam Schillaci here and the pair married a few years later, becoming one of the most potent wife-husband teams in the business.

Odds and ends: The sport’s leading driver, Tony Morgan, was at Northfield last Thursday and Friday in a quest to become the second pilot in history to win 1,000 races in a single year. After winning six races on Thursday, he was one win short but he turned the trick with trotter Eden Roc in the second race on Friday.

The track’s game room has closed and the space will be remodeled shortly.