[Gate Dancer]

Steve, I live in Great Falls but here's what I know. The 'circuit' here starts in Miles City with the Annual Bucking Horse Sale (3rd weekend in May) and a couple of days of racing goes along with it. The Bucking Horse Sale is one of the best rodeo stock sales in the country (no joke). They have the pari-mutual racing on Saturday and Sunday of the 4 day extravaganza. The racing is a combo of Quarters and Thouroughbreds. Pools are very small, a $20 win bet can cut your horses odds in half. The 'about' 5F distance is common in Miles City. They usually have a bit of a tough time finding jockeys and many of them will be +8lbs over the program listing. Most of the trainers are locals and many are Native Americans. In Great Falls we will have 5 days of racing this year comprising the last two weekends of July. It is the same mix of QH's and TB's. The TB's race at the 'about' 5F distance or 7F. (Our '5F' races are actually 5F and 70 yds.) Most of the fields are 6-7 horses and the trainers will come down from Lethbridge, Canada to help supply stock for the Great Falls meet. Again, the pools are extremely small but it still can be fun to see them run 'live'. The Montana circuit finishes in Billings with about a 20 day meet that wraps up around Labor Day. In Billings, you have better crowds and a slightly larger handle. It is amazing we still have the opportunity to see live racing here as every year the discussion comes up about shutting it down. There are 8 OTB locations in Montana and ours here in Great Falls is pretty nice. We get most major tracks and have a good variety.

Growing up in Omaha and following the Nebraska cirucit, the end of the racing season would finish up at Atokad Park in South Sioux City and I would see a few horses and trainers that would come down from Montana after the Billings meet would end. They usually brought some pretty live horses. In it's day the meets at both Great Falls and Billings would have some pretty nice crowds and handles. It is barely hanging on at this point..........

Our real claim to fame here is that Great Falls is the home of Al & Joyce Bell who bred and briefly owned Medalia D'Oro before selling him to Edmund Gann. The dam of Medalia D'Oro (Cappuchino Bay) is due to drop a foal any day now after being bred to Street Sense. Kinda cool.........