Cedar Downs

I normally don't post new topics but I found this to be interesting. Anyone read today's On-Point about Cedar Downs. For anyone who hasn't, click here. Judging by the pictures she sent in, that floor looks like it goes down about 20 feet or so? Does anyone know for sure how deep that is? Also I didn't know that there was a lot of History with Cedar Downs. Apparently Cedar Downs came from Cleveland from Euclid Beach Park and in 1965, the ride came to Cedar Point. Does anybody still ride this ride? I feel like its one of those rides I have to stop and ride once in a while.

From the pics it looks like it only goes down about 3 or 4 feet. To me it looks like she just put the camera down an open hole in the floor to show us what was beneath. Its nice seeing them putting some love and care into Cedar Downs!

Yeah it's around four to five feet in the pit, you have to crouch down when you're working down there.

I ride it every visit.

^ That's what I meant to say in my first post. I don't know why I said every once in a while. I ride Cedar Downs all the time. Cedar Downs is a nice calm ride where you can pretend like your racing your family members or your friends side by side.

I usually don't check the blog, so thanks for posting this. This is the kind of behind the scenes stuff I love reading/seeing.

I've rode it at Euclid Beach Park,Yes,I'm old

I try to ride it on every visit. I also try to ride the old fashioned cars. They need to keep these types of rides. I love the roller coasters but my wife doesn't so Cedar Downs and the old fashioned cars are ones we can do together.

As cheesy as it is we love that ride! In fact for years we have had "races" We each pick a horse all within the same row. As the ride begins we behave like idiots as if we are real jockey's, including naming our stallion. At the end we see who wins by which horse has the lead. You'd be amazed at how close it has come. We've even had to ask complete strangers be a final judge. Theres a lot riding on it; each race is worth $5 per rider or looser buys a round at Game Day.

Thanks for pointing out the Blog, I never considered the underworkings before.

Yeah no problem guys. Like I said, I found this to be really neat and wanted to share with everyone about it. Maggie, there is nothing wrong with how you enjoy Cedar Downs. You're just using your imagination. :)

Great pictures. I ride Cedar Downs just about every time I visit. I wasn't too happy when they decided to add a music track, but I'm used to it now. Couldn't imagine being a ride-op....listening to that tune over and over and over would drive me insane! It's great to see that they're refurbishing it. Great ride.

One of the must-ride rides pretty much each visit. Lots of history with this....it's been at Cedar Point longer than I've been alive! lol

I'm a little nervous about something- it appears from the photos that the new floor has holes for the horse's supports rather than slots. My every hope is that the back and forth motion is not going away, and that the slots will be cut back into the floor. Please.
Of the three Prior and Church Racing Derbys left, I believe Cedar Point's is the only one that still "races" as originally intended. The up and down motion is due to the undulating track that you can see in the pics. Also below the floor is the mechanism that makes them race, which i understand to be sets of cables and pulleys. I've heard through the years that this mechanism can be a bit of maintenance trouble and that's why Rye and Blackpool's horses are stationary now.
Nervous, here...

Oh nooooooo. I didn't notice that about the pictures, but your right. I'm not a carpenter, but would it make sense to build the new floor first and cut the slots into it last? I'd hate for Cedar Downs to lose it's forward and backward racing motion. No I'm worried too. :-(

I see slots with new kickboards in those pictures, so I would say that nothing has changed underneath.

Where do you see that, Dutchman? Maybe I'm not looking at it right, but the slots and kick boards seem to be on old floor. The new floor, under the temporary weather shelter, clearly has round holes.
And Richie, I'm not a carpenter either, but does it make sense that even if the slots were to come later that the interim measure would be such perfectly round little holes? Aw, jeez, I'm still nervous.
Anyway, I decided to go straight to the horses patoot, as they say, and posed the question in the comments block below the article. Hopefully she'll see it and get back to us with a satisfactory response.

In the final blog picture, I can't tell if that is on a finished re-floored section or not. From the looks of the yellow paint, I'd say that's an old row that hasn't been worked on yet. It will be interesting to see what they say.

When I rode the Derby Racer at Rye many years ago, I thought the ride's high-speed table made up for the lack of forward-and-back racing. When the ride ops instruct you to "lean to the left" before the table even starts to move, you know your in for a treat.

My Mom rode this when she grew up in Euclid. I was born the year after it moved to CP. My Mom tells me the soundtrack that used toplay was close to what she remembers when it was at Euclid Beach.

So, first they change the soundtrack a few years ago :-( and now possibly no racing. NOOOOOO My Mom will be so upset. It is one of the few things she likes to ride if not for the memories. But I doubt she will if they no longer race.

I hope we are wrong, but that one picture sure seems to say otherwise.

Someone going on the tour on the 16th will need to ask this to someone other than Bryan E. I am sure he is not kept up to speed on all CP happenings.

I am thinking the captions on the last two photos are reversed. In the last photo, the section to the right is a lighter color, and more important there is a neat round hole that looks freshly drilled. It looks like the boxes around the horse tracks are not new, although the floorboards are.

A closer look at the second photo reveals that thie are not nice neat round holes for the risers, but that the holes are, in fact, square. This suggests that perhaps the floor boards are being installed radially and then cut for the horse slots.

Wishful thinking on my part? Perhaps. But I hope the plan is to restore the ride so that the racing motion is preserved. I'm still disappointed in them for eliminating the sliding motion on the ex-Geauga Lake carousel, and I haven't even been to Kansas City to see it yet.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Thank you for weighing in on this, Dave. What you say makes perfect sense, and I feel better now.