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Workouts begin at Fonner Park
Morning workouts have once again resumed at Fonner Park Race Track in Grand Island. Another season is quickly approaching. It's just one month from first posttime, and everyone at the track including the horses are busy preparing for what they feel will more great races.
There is horse groomswoman Lisa Rathman with "She's A Frigid Cat" - just one of the many incredible animals in Chuck Turco's barn ready for the 2013 Fonner Park Meeting. It will be the 60th season of racing at the track. Many of the horses are already in the barn, all working out in the morning anticipating that February 22nd opening day for the Sport of Kings here at the Grand Island track. This is "Reach One More" and he'll be running at Fonner Park in about a month from now and he's really looking forward to it. He's a great horse that has won some races out here. Diamond Jim is another horse worth watching. He won 8 races in a row last season. The hard work of getting the horses ready to race, and ready to win is what's going on now, about a month from first post time. "There's six grooms and we each have our own string of horses and we are responsible for them and Chuck writes down a list of what they do everyday and we get here and follow that order," said Rathman. For the owners it's a huge investment feeding and working out the horses is a never ending task. It's all worth it when post time arrives and the horse can be in the winner's circle. "We've had a couple of pretty cold days last week so ti's always that way in Grand Island. It sort of makes you feel alive, you know when you're freezing every morning. But it looks like it's going to go good. They have a new surface on the track and it seems to be real live so it ought to be fun," Turco said. Fonner's 60th season will be especially important to horse race fans and the horse racing industry sicne the track in Lincoln with its annual summer season is now closes. One so called 'silver lining' is that there will be more money to be won at Fonner. The track's gone at the Fairgrounds in Lincoln so bittersweet but it meant for bigger purses here. 31 dates are set for the track from February 22nd to May 4th. The schedule again follows the days of Friday thru Sunday with the track dark Easter Sunday. As Always, News 5 at Ten will exclusively have the feature race highlights and payoff from Fonner Park every one of the race dates. Late Charge it's Wild Jacob, back to 3rd its Shadow Be Dancing but it Ransom Reberto winning the Bosselman by three parts of a length. |
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