BISMARCK — Slowly, the North Dakota Horse Park is building up its racing season. For the second year in a row, live horse racing is expected to return for four weekends in 2025. The North Dakota Horse Racing Commission granted the North Dakota Horse Park four weekends of live horse racing at its Thursday, Nov.
14, meeting. Racing is expected to be held throughout the month of July, as in previous years. North Dakota Horse Park General Manager Hugh Alan Drexler requested up to eight days of racing starting July 11 and ending Aug.
2. The race days can vary each weekend from Friday through Sunday. While the Fargo track hosted four weekends of racing in 2024, in both 2022 and 2023, the track held three weekends of racing.
It hosted a four-week meet in 2021 but only two weekends in 2020. Drexler said it costs an additional $100,000 in operational expenses to run an additional weekend of racing, so he has opened up a discussion with horsemen to gauge interest in running a shorter meet in which each race will be worth more, or hosting the full eight days of racing. The 2024 race meet reached attendance and purse records as the North Dakota Horse Park paid out more than $439,600 in purses, up from about $377,000 paid in 2023.
The total handle, or amount of money bet on horse racing over the eight-day season, was about $307,600. The commission granted Chippewa Downs, in Belcourt, five weekends of live racing, although the track only expects to host four weekends in June. The additio.
