Rosecroft Raceway track to close July 1 - wtop.com (http://wtopnews.com/?nid=25&sid=1982159)

Rosecroft Raceway track to close July 1 - wtop.com (http://wtopnews.com/?nid=25&sid=1982159)

Wow this is unbelievable, i was talking about Rosecroft about 2 hours ago. Used to live in Oxon Hill.\, and we used to go up there all the time, had many agood times there, might try to take my son up there just to experience once. I know harness racing has been in danger for a long time and that Rosecroft is a prime piece of property but this is a shame. I guess it is also connected to the so called joke of MD. slot machines which is a total joke. And when i was younger used to go up in the snowy winter months and slide down the hills, only problem was it was a long trip up the hill and you had to watch out for fences and rarely cars.

My dad used to pick me up when I got off work from Peoples Drug in Suitland and we would go to Rosecroft. I was 17 at the time. He would take me around to where the horses were so I could look at them and decide which one I wanted to bet on. Then he would go and place a $2.00 bet for me. I won about 80% of the time. After I got married, I lived in the high-rise apartment bldg that you could see from the track.

Rosecroft stopped having actual live racing, 2 years ago. Since that time, all they've offered there is off-track betting , using remote video-screens showing races at other tracks. Similar to what they do at the Port Tobacco Marina facility (near LaPlata, MD). Now the problem is, where do all the former track workers go, who have always lived on the grounds of Rosecroft - the Washington Post had a major article asking this question, a few weeks ago.

Another piece of my childhood gone... We used to ride our bikes to Henson Creek behind the racetrack and go swimming. Sometimes, there were horses in the creek and we couldn't go swimming. When we got older, it was sledding, then we fnally got old enough to actually go to dinner and do some betting!! :buddies:

That's sad for me. In the late eighties I worked there in the clubhouse and later as a ticket seller. It was a great place to work. They paid well and treated you really well. It is sad to hear that it is closing.