Kentucky Gov. Beshear not ready to set plan for return to racing

In his daily briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic on Friday evening, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear did not float any specific plan for the return of live racing in the state, even without spectators.

Keeneland had been scheduled to open its spring meeting on April 2 and Churchill Downs is slated to open its spring-summer meeting on April 25. Keeneland canceled its meeting, and Churchill has yet to make a formal announcement on the status of its meet, but in mid-March announced that the Kentucky Derby was postponed from the first Saturday in May to Sept. 5.

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On March 22, Beshear ordered all non-essential businesses in the state to shut down, prompting Turfway Park to end its meet three days early. Beshear also encouraged people to leave their homes only for essential business.

Beshear in Friday's briefing said he is worried that setting a specific date when it would be safe to resume racing could lead the public to believe that an end is in sight to the crisis. That belief could cause the public to approach federal social distancing guidelines with a more relaxed attitude and lead to an increased spread of the virus.

“It’s going to take as long to defeat this virus as it takes,” Beshear said. “We’re talking about some term of months – we’re not talking about some term of years – but the moment we start trying to say ‘We believe [racing is] ‘X’ days away’ is the moment people start relaxing on social distancing. We’d see the spike and, ultimately, we’d lose more people because of it.”

Turfway Park, which is owned by Churchill Downs Inc., conducted the latter part of its meet without spectators, including its signature card of racing featuring the Grade 3 Jeff Ruby on March 14. Keeneland announced the decision to cancel its spring meet on March 16, with the influx of horsemen from around the country who typically attend the meet a primary concern. Both tracks remain open for training, with only essential personnel permitted into the facilities.

Churchill Downs is scheduled to open its backstretch on April 14. In a meeting of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission's Dates Committee on Thursday, Churchill Downs president Kevin Flanery said the track was prepared to run its upcoming meeting without spectators, if that was deemed possible by state and local officials.

"Because this is such a fluid situation, if we are asked to run spectatorless, then we will be prepared to do that," Flanery said. "Obviously, we have a lot of things to work on, but we have the experience from Turfway Park. We will be taking that guidance. Whatever scenario is put forward to us, we're trying to work through those and be ready to run at the right time."

But in Friday's briefing, Beshear said he is leery of conducting racing even without spectators, with new cases of COVID-19 being reported. On Friday, 90 new cases were reported in the state, bringing the total to 831.

“While there might be a point, hopefully, where we see cases going down where [spectatorless racing] is something we that we could consider,” Beshear said. “Right now, we shouldn’t be getting people together for any reason whatsoever.”