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 in Henderson, Ky.
The driver was taken to the hospital via ambulance. Ellis Park did not identify the employee, citing health privacy laws. The rail was damaged around 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.
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