Batavia Downs Announces New Hires in its Racing Division

Batavia Downs President and CEO Byron Brown announced new hires for three key live racing positions.

Brown announced that Nicolle Fortes, a 31-year employee at Batavia Downs, has been promoted to the position of General Manager of Live Racing. Fortes had served as Branch Manager of Inter-Track Wagering (ITW) since 2010 and replaces Don Hoover as GM of Live Racing, who retired in January.

Fortes, a Batavia resident, will begin her new role immediately and will oversee a live harness racing season that begins July 26th and includes the prestigious New York Sire Stakes “Night of Champions” on September 6th.

Brown also announced that Elba, NY resident, Andrew Gottler, has been named the new Track Supervisor at Batavia Downs. Gottler was hired in 2016 and served as Assistant Track Supervisor since last July.

Brown also said that a new track consultant has been hired. Gary Wolff, who has 30 years of experience in track maintenance and consulting and currently serves as Director of Racetrack Properties at The Meadowlands in New Jersey, will serve as a consultant for the 2025 racing season at Batavia Downs to assist in the resurfacing, grading, re-banking and preparation of the track for the upcoming season.

Brown said of the new hires, “We have added a tremendous amount of experience to our live racing and racetrack operations as we get ready for the upcoming harness racing season that begins in late July. We want to focus more aggressively on racing. Harness racing and thoroughbred racing has been down nationally, and we want to place more focus on it strategically to bring more people into enjoying racing”.

The Batavia Downs Board of Directors approved all three of the hires on May 22nd as its monthly meeting.