by Mark McKelvie, WEG Communications

Toronto, ON — The Mohawk summer meet has come to a close and fall has officially arrived as live harness racing returns to Woodbine this Thursday (Oct. 16).

The Fall/Winter meet will feature four nights a week of racing, Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Broadcast upgrades and the return of a state-of-the-art tracking tool will change the way fans and horseplayers watch the races from Woodbine.

Beginning with Thursday’s opening card, the Woodbine Standardbred simulcast feed will be produced in High Definition in a production control room on the fourth floor of the Woodbine grandstand. Customers on site will be able to view the races in HD (1080p; 16:9 aspect ratio).

Fans south of the border will be able to view the races in HD as TVG, the premier horse racing TV channel in the United States, will be carrying the Woodbine 1080p HD signal.

As for the product on the track, driver Jody Jamieson believes the track dimensions at Woodbine allow for more upsets.

“A lot of the time the best horse wins at Mohawk, but at Woodbine the turns are different, a little smaller then that big last turn at Mohawk that allows horses to get into the race,” said Jamieson. “At Woodbine, the best horse can be kind of marred in traffic and get himself beat a little more often then at Mohawk.”

Jamieson is also a big fan of the track surface at Woodbine, which will offer purses of approximately C$200,000 a night, and the speed it offers.

“I love racing at Woodbine. I think the track is a faster track and maybe one of the fastest tracks in the world to race good horses on.”

As for an adjustment period between switching from Mohawk to Woodbine, Jamieson said it doesn’t take long.

“I adapt to it right away and I think most guys adapt right away to the racing style and hopefully the bettors appreciate it.”

While not installed for opening night, fans will also soon enjoy the return of Trakus to the Woodbine Standardbred broadcast. Trakus, the automated racehorse tracking system, is being re-launched to provide Standardbred horseplayers with the best data around.

The reintroduction of Trakus to Standardbred racing will offer horseplayers the most accurate charts and information in harness racing. Trakus compiles information on each horse at every point of the race through wireless communication to a tag placed inside the saddle pad.

Horesplayers will now know exactly where each horse is during the race, through the Trakus technology incorporated into the live simulcast feed.

The opening weekend at Woodbine will feature the return of the Fall Four Stakes. Last contested at Woodbine in 2010, the Fall Four Stakes bring the top 2-year-olds in harness racing to Toronto to contest the Governor’s Cup, Valley Victory, Three Diamonds and Goldsmith Maid. Eliminations for the events will take place this Friday and Saturday and the finals will take place as part of a C$2 million card on Saturday (Oct. 25).

Post time for each night of live racing is 7:25 p.m. except on two special occasions. Post time on Saturday (Nov. 1) will be 7:55 p.m., while the special afternoon Boxing Day card on Friday (Dec. 26) will feature a post time of 1 p.m.