Live Thoroughbred racing will return to the Erie, Pennsylvania, track on Friday when Presque Isle Downs begins its 2008 meeting.

Presque Isle’s 100-day season will extend through September 27, with a daily first post time of 5:30 p.m. EDT. Admission and general parking throughout the meet will be free.

Last year, Presque Isle’s inaugural meeting was 25 days and generated averages of 2,851 in daily attendance, $58,257 in daily on-track wagering and $585,680 in daily wagering from all sources. It was the first pari-mutuel meeting held in the Erie area since Commodore Downs ceased operations two decades ago.

“We’ve got the money, we’ve got the surface, and I anticipate a very good meet here,” said David Frizzell, racing secretary at Presque Isle. Frizzell anticipates an average purse distribution of around $180,000 per race card. Races will be conducted over Presque Isle’s one-mile oval, which has a synthetic Tapeta Footings surface.

The Presque Isle race program will be anchored by 25 stakes races, 13 of which will be open events, and the remaining 12 restricted to horses sired and/or bred in Pennsylvania.

Highlighting the stakes program will be the second running of the $400,000 Presque Isle Downs Masters Stakes, a six-furlong race for fillies and mares, three years old and upwards, on September 13.

Opening day at Presque Isle will include the second running of the $100,000 Inaugural Stakes. Among the expected participants in the Inaugural Stakes, a six-furlong race for three-year-old fillies, is American County, who is trained by Dale Romans.

American County won the Sunshine Million Oaks at Gulfstream Park on January 26. At age two, Sunshine County finished third in the Debutante Stakes (G3) at Churchill Downs.

Steve Asmussen, who conditions the 2007 Horse the Year, Curlin, and who led all North American trainers in ’07 with 488 victories, plans to maintain a 40-horse string this season at Presque Isle. Last year, Asmussen registered ten wins and 36 placings at Presque Isle to lead the trainer standings by purse earnings with $847,975.