NEW KENT — The graceful thoroughbred horses that typically dominate Colonial Downs shared the spotlight with cuddly competition this past Saturday as the New Kent County racetrack hosted its first-ever corgi races.
For the past few years, the racetrack has held promotional events on opening weekend. Last year it was zebra, ostrich and camel races, while in 2024, there was a horse wedding. The track has also hosted successful wiener dog races over the past two years, so organizers decided to try corgis this time, said marketing manager Bella Hodge.
“It obviously brought a good crowd today, so that’s exciting,” Hodge said. “Fans, little kids — everybody loves this.” The event attracted 64 corgis from across Virginia, who competed in eight different heats between horse races, with the winners of each facing off in a final showdown.
The winner of the first heat was 3-year-old Marlin, a tri-colored corgi. His owner, Tara Davey, used to live in California and watched the Corgi Nationals, a major corgi racing festival held there. After Davey’s recent move to Virginia, she was looking for something similar.
This was Marlin’s first race, and she couldn’t believe his speedy performance.
“He was very sleepy this morning — I expected it would be chaos,” she laughed. “I thought he would either turn and run the opposite direction and I’d have to chase him around the racetrack to my embarrassment, or I thought that he would just sit there and not know what to do. So the fact that he actually ran fast in a straight line and won the first heat was very shocking to me.”
Whether or not Marlin recognized his momentous win, Davey can’t say, but the experience is one she won’t forget.
“It’s pretty cool to say that he raced on a real racetrack and he was a champion at the first-ever Colonial Downs corgi race — so an historic moment for Marlin, and he’s just happy to be here, happy to be involved,” Davey said.
Despite Marlin’s best efforts, the final winner was Willow, a corgi mix who was adopted from the Heritage Humane Society in Williamsburg a couple of years ago. Willow hadn’t done anything like a corgi race before either, but she loves running with her owner — perhaps giving her an edge over the competition.
Willow conquered the chaos of heat eight and emerged victorious.“We broke some other corgi owners’ hearts out there today,” her owner, Liz Parler, said jokingly.
Parler recounted how it felt when Willow crossed that final finish line, especially considering her earlier performance.
“It was shocking, especially because she came from the slowest heat,” Parler said. “She was in heat eight, in which everyone just kind of wandered around sniffing each other. There were no fights, there were no real speed racers like the other heats had.
“I knew she could run fast, but it’s just a matter of whether or not she wants to make friends.”
For those who don’t normally attend horse races, something like corgi races can provide just the right incentive to try something new, Hodge said. Plus, it helps give Colonial Downs exposure.
“If I had to guess, 65% of people have probably never been to a horse race before,” Hodge said. “It might be a little lower than that, but it is mostly people who are new, and a lot of times they end up coming back for horse racing.”
With the summer racing season now underway, events will be held every Thursday through Sunday until Sept. 7. Other premium race days this summer include Aug. 1 for the annual Colonial Downs Festival of Racing, which features the season’s biggest races and purses, and Aug. 15, when wiener dog races return.
Skylar Hartgerink, skylar.hartgerink@virginiamedia.com
