Churchill Downs suspends turf racing
Churchill Downs announced on Saturday morning the immediate suspension of turf racing and training over its course that debuted at this current spring-summer meeting, with a pause to last at least two weeks. The suspension certainly will impact what would have been some of the featured allowance-level events over the next week.
“In order to allow our new turf course to continue to develop its root system, we have suspended turf racing for the next two weeks,” Churchill Downs president Mike Anderson said in a press release issued by the track Saturday morning. “The new Bermuda-hybrid grass was installed last fall and will continue to mature during the very warm days and weeks ahead. We’ve made a long-term investment in our turf course, and we’re confident this brief pause will allow it to become more robust.”
The suspension of turf racing is an escalation of a move Churchill Downs made earlier last week to limit racing on the new course. That adjustment followed complaints by horsemen about loose footing and unusually large divots over the course, which was installed last year after the old turf was torn out following the 2021 spring-summer meet.
The course debuted on opening night of this meet, April 30, and hosted several stakes races over Kentucky Derby week.
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The track had previously announced that it would limit turf racing to a maximum of two races per day through the end of the meet on July 4, with other races in the condition book originally scheduled for turf moving to the main track.
“We’ve had good, open dialogue with the riders," Churchill spokesman Darren Rogers said in a prepared statement at the time of the reduction of turf racing. "The grass has been cut short to promote the continued root growth. . . . We have complete confidence it will be more robust for additional turf racing later this year with just a little more time.”
Beginning Saturday, races in the current condition book scheduled for turf are moving to the same distance on the main track. Those shifts impact 12 races scheduled for turf in the condition book during this five-day race week that begins on Wednesday.
The Wednesday card was drawn on Friday, prior to the Saturday morning suspension of turf racing, and the feature race was to be a $141,000 allowance/optional event for fillies and mares on the turf that will now be moved to the main track, and will almost certainly see some changes in the lineup. Five of the six entrants are dropping directly out of turf stakes company, including graded stakes winner Navratilova, fifth after setting the pace in the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley at Keeneland last out.
Other than last Saturday’s Mighty Beau overnight stakes – won by the versatile Just Might after its move to the main track – there are no turf stakes races scheduled at Churchill for the next two weekends. The track does have three turf stakes on the schedule for the massive Saturday, July 2 card – the Grade 2, $350,000 Wise Dan, the $200,000 American Derby, and $200,000 Tepin.
With the closure of the Churchill Downs, Inc.-owned Arlington Park, which in 2021 opened in late April, the closest Midwest tracks currently offering turf racing, pending the status of Churchill’s course, are Belterra Park outside Cincinnati; Horseshoe Indianapolis; and Hawthorne in Chicago.
The Kentucky circuit moves to Ellis Park for its summer meeting starting July 8.
The popular meet at Colonial Downs in Virginia opens July 11. CDI announced earlier this year that it had entered into an agreement to buy that facility, expected to close at the end of this year.