Churchill meet opens the roads to Derby and Oaks
RACE REPLAY IS NOT AVAILABLE
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The recent announcement that Churchill Downs is seeking to take over winter dates from Turfway Park was a stark reminder of a substantive alteration to the Kentucky racing circuit six years ago. Although the situations are very different, it was in 2013 that Churchill assumed the block of September dates that traditionally had been Turfway’s.
Regardless of your take on the latest developments, it cannot be argued that moving to Churchill in September has been a plus for industry stakeholders in the big picture. Purses now far exceed what had been the September norm at Turfway, and several races on the revamped Churchill stakes schedule have quickly become key stepping-stones toward the Breeders’ Cup.
With that, there’s an undercurrent of excitement at Churchill, where the 11-day September meet begins Friday with a 10-race card. Four stakes will be run Saturday, led by the twin races for 2-year-olds, the Grade 2 Pocahontas and Grade 3 Iroquois, both of them Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In events that also serve as the first qualifying-points events toward the 2020 Kentucky Oaks and Derby.
The stakes schedule consists of eight races, with the second major date being the Sept. 28 night card featuring the Lukas Classic and the Ack Ack. Monomoy Girl, the 2018 champion 3-year-old filly, is being considered for a run versus male rivals in one of those races, while Omaha Beach, scratched as the morning-line favorite for the Kentucky Derby, is being pointed to the Ack Ack. The Sept. 21 feature is the Dogwood, which is expected to get Covfefe.
Churchill is setting a high bar with its Friday opener. Purses for every race in the 20-cent Single 6 jackpot wager (races 5-10) start at $95,000 and top out at $105,000, with the feature (race 6) being a high-end allowance matching the Sagamore Farm stable coupling of Recruiting Ready and He Hate Me versus six other older sprinters. Two other allowances (races 8 and 9) are part of the sequence.
Per-day purses, helped considerably by the success of Churchill’s nearby Derby City gaming site, are projected to average more than $750,000, with total purses of more than $8 million.
Churchill issued a press release Sept. 3 saying it has asked the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission to take over what long have been the Turfway winter dates in 2020, with the intention of eventually building a racetrack and gaming facility in northern Kentucky, not far from where Turfway is located. The KHRC will assign those dates on Nov. 1. Churchill has said it will use the winter dates at its flagship track until the new facility becomes operational, meaning the final meet at Turfway might well be its 2019 holiday meet, which ends Dec. 31.
Daily first post is 12:45 p.m. Eastern, except for 5 p.m. on Sept. 19 and 26 and 6 p.m. on Sept. 28. The meet runs through Sept. 29, with Keeneland starting its fall meet Oct. 4.