Friday Night Lights
Quinte Raceway LogoIn 2006, I was at a dog show in Clayton, New York, as with all dog shows I looked for nearby tracks to visit and I found Quinte Raceway (pronounced Quinn-E buy the locals). It was about an hour an a half on the 401, so after the show I packed up the wife and dog and headed for the border.
Quinte, was a half mile oval with an open air grandstand that had bleacher seating. It was part of the Ontario "B" circuit and raced one night a week on Fridays. My memory is a little hazy, I remember everyone being friendly, but a couple of things I'll never forget.
The track was narrow and couldn't fit eight horses, I don't recall if there was one or two in the second tier, but I do remember the first row of bleachers was right on the track, seemed like you could reach out and touch the horses. After the first race I had my nose buried in the program and decided to check the prices from the race just run. As I looked up a young boy riding his bike across the track caught my attention, he dropped his bike in the infield and climbed up a platform and started posting numbers, he was the totalizator board.
For some reason I took an interest in Quinte and followed it's progress, seems the old fairgrounds was to get an upgrade, a new state of the art facility including a casino. All there ever was, was delay after delay and the project never got off the ground. After many setbacks, racing was finally eliminated in 2009, looks like the grandstand is still there, minus the announcers booth. I guess to me it didn't matter, I never went back to Clayton.