Drive past 5857 State Route 96 on a Friday night in July and the parking lot is full: trucks nosed toward the grandstand, a line at the paddock rail, the low roar that means post time is close. Drive past that same building on a Friday night in January and the lot looks almost identical. Full rows. Music leaking out past the doors. The difference isn't visible from the road, and that's the part most Farmington residents get wrong about Finger Lakes Gaming & Racetrack.
The assumption is understandable. Live thoroughbred racing runs roughly mid-April through late November or early December, so once the last horse crosses the wire for the season, it's easy to picture the whole property going dark until spring. It doesn't. What actually happens is narrower and more interesting: one product inside that building stops, and everything else keeps running exactly as it did the week before.
The Race Nobody Told You Stopped
Here's the detail that surprises people who've lived here for years: even during the height of racing season, the track isn't running horses every day. Finger Lakes hosts about 160 live race days across a season that stretches roughly seven and a half months, which works out to something closer to five racing days a week, not seven. So the transition from "racing season" to "off-season" isn't a switch from constant activity to silence. It's the removal of one recurring event from a building that was already doing several other things on the days horses weren't running anyway.
That distinction matters because it reframes what "the season ending" actually means for anyone who lives nearby. The grandstand empties out. The paddock goes quiet. The one-mile dirt track and the half-mile training oval sit unused until spring entries start again. But the building itself, the part most people actually walk into on a given night, doesn't follow the same calendar at all.
Two Calendars Under One Roof
Finger Lakes Gaming & Racetrack runs on two separate schedules that happen to share an address. The first is the racing calendar: seasonal, weather-dependent, tied to entries and post times, done by early winter. The second is everything else, and it runs year-round without pause.
The video gaming floor, with more than 1,100 machines, is open daily from 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. That's not a seasonal hours, that's every day of the year, live racing or not. Simulcast wagering on tracks like Gulfstream, Belmont, Santa Anita, Churchill Downs, and Saratoga continues on the same daily schedule, so the screens that used to share space with a live race card simply become the whole show once local racing wraps for the year. Remedy Bar & Lounge keeps its live band lineup on Fridays and Saturdays straight through the winter, which is the actual reason that January parking lot looks so much like the July one. The Vineyard Buffet and the Platinum Grille don't close for the season either.
Here's what that looks like laid out side by side:
| Racing Season (mid-April to late Nov/early Dec) | Off-Season (rest of the year) | |
|---|---|---|
| Live thoroughbred racing | Yes, roughly 160 race days | No |
| Simulcast wagering | Yes | Yes |
| Video gaming floor | 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. daily | 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. daily |
| Remedy live bands | Friday and Saturday nights | Friday and Saturday nights |
| Vineyard Buffet and Platinum Grille | Open | Open |
The only row that changes is the top one. Everything else that draws a Friday-night crowd was already running independent of whether a horse was racing that afternoon.
Sixty-Four Seasons, One Longer-Running Bar
Part of why the building can absorb a seasonal closure without slowing down is that racing was never its only identity. Finger Lakes opened in 1962, and in the decades since it's hosted Hall of Fame jockeys including Angel Cordero, Pat Day, Julie Krone, and Bill Shoemaker. The property also includes one of the only equine swim facilities in the country, a detail that has less to do with a Friday night out and more to do with just how long this operation has been running as a full working racetrack rather than a seasonal novelty.
The stakes calendar gives it its biggest local moments: the New York Derby runs in July as the second leg of the state's Big Apple Triple for New York-bred three-year-olds, and the New York Breeders' Futurity headlines in early autumn. Those are the days the grandstand fills up the way people picture it. But those marquee dates are a small fraction of the roughly 160 race days each year, which is itself a small fraction of the calendar overall. The gaming floor, the buffet, and Remedy have simply been the more constant tenant the whole time.
One detail that's stuck around in racetrack lore: Fio Rito, a New York-bred horse who became the state's first to win a Grade I stakes race, is buried in the infield after capturing the Whitney Handicap at Saratoga in one of his few starts away from Finger Lakes. It's the kind of fact regulars mention almost as a landmark, the way you'd point out an old oak tree that's been there longer than most of the houses around it.
What This Actually Means If You're Nearby
If you live along Route 96 or anywhere close enough to notice the building's rhythm, the practical takeaway is simple: don't assume December quiets things down. If you're planning a Friday night out in the dead of winter expecting a sleepy lot and a half-empty room, that's not what you'll find. Remedy's band schedule doesn't care what month it is, and the gaming floor's 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. hours haven't changed since racing wrapped.
What does shift is where the activity concentrates. During the season, some of that Friday-night energy is split between the grandstand and the indoor spaces. Once racing ends, all of it funnels into Remedy, the buffet, and the gaming floor, which is part of why the winter version of a weekend night there can feel just as full, sometimes fuller, than a summer one. The building isn't quieter. It's just running on one calendar instead of two.
A few things worth knowing if you're headed there this fall or winter:
- Live racing typically wraps by late November or early December, but exact closing dates shift slightly year to year based on entries and weather.
- The gaming floor's 8 a.m. to 4 a.m. schedule runs every day, all year, independent of racing.
- Remedy's live bands play Friday and Saturday nights regardless of season.
- Simulcast wagering on major tracks continues daily, even with no local racing on the card.
- The Vineyard Buffet and Platinum Grille stay open on their usual schedule through the off-season.
None of this is a secret exactly, but it's the kind of local detail that only becomes obvious once you've watched the building through a full year instead of just a summer. For a lot of Farmington residents, that parking lot has always just been "the racetrack." It's more accurate to think of it as two businesses sharing one roof, one that closes for the winter and one that never has.
If you're getting to know this stretch of Route 96, or you're already a regular trying to plan around race season, Deanna & Steve Nissen are always happy to talk through what makes this corner of Farmington tick, racetrack rhythms included. Get in touch anytime.
