Page 7 - Shenandoah Downs News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Shenandoah Downs reached the halfway point of its 2023 pari-mutuel harness racing schedule on Mother's Day Sunday when a seven-week, 14-day spring season came to an end.

Shenandoah Downs horse track in Woodstock has a special guest this week. From Tuesday to Saturday the track will be hosting a life size statue of Secretariat.

Fifty years ago this May, Secretariat -- arguably the greatest horse of all time -- kicked off his dominating sweep of the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. "Big Red," who was bred and raised in Doswell, Virginia at the Meadow Farm, rolled through the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes in 1973, in record-setting times that still stand today. 

Participants who supported Virginia's new Certified Residency Program from its beginning four years ago will be rewarded this weekend with four $25,000 Certified races.

Former NFL player Oscar Johnson Jr. got his first pari-mutuel win ever as a trainer at Shenandoah Downs this past Saturday, April 22 with Dr. Scott Woogen's pacer KJ Erich, then four races later -- albeit the next afternoon -- struck again with Woogen's Just A Passenger in Sunday's fourth.