Ellis Park resumes as scheduled Saturday after tractor accident

All of Friday’s races at Ellis Park were switched from dirt to turf due to a tractor destroying a portion of the inner rail on the main track according to a social media post from Jennie Rees of Ellis Park publicity.

A follow-up statement from the track said the driver of the tractor suffered a medical emergency, leading to the crash. Racing is scheduled to resume as normal on Saturday.

"A tractor driver had a medical emergency during track maintenance prior to Friday’s fifth race that resulted in the tractor hitting the inner rail of the dirt track at Ellis Park.

"The driver was taken to the hospital via ambulance. Ellis Park did not identify the employee, citing health privacy laws. The rail was damaged about the sixteenth pole and was unable to be immediately repaired, forcing the fifth and seventh races to be moved from the main track to the turf course.

"Track General Manager Jeff Inman said that the rail would be repaired overnight and in the morning and that racing would resume as scheduled at 12:50 p.m. CT Saturday.

"Training has been canceled for Saturday morning to accommodate the repair.

"The surface change necessitated adjustments to the payoffs for a trio of multi-race wagers. The Pick 3 beginning with race 3 paid out on 5-6-all. The Pick 3 starting with race 4 paid off on 6-all-3. The Pick 5 starting with the fourth race paid off on 6-all-3-all-3.

"While taking races off the turf and putting them on the main track is a frequent occurrence when the grass becomes too saturated with rain, the reverse is highly unusual. However, there were no defections from the two races moved to the turf."

The crash occurred near the sixteenth pole. 

The eight-race slate had included four races scheduled to be run on the dirt. Four total races were run as scheduled before the accident, two each on the dirt and turf.

The fifth race was the first to move off the dirt. In that race, Jennings, trained by Ian Wilkes and ridden by Brian Hernandez Jr., won the race in the late going. Jennings beat seven other older maidens in the $51,000 race, run at 5 1/2 furlongs on the lawn after being planned for six on the main track.