With lease set to expire, the old Calder opens for final meet

MIAMI – There will be a touch of sadness in the air during the 2020 Gulfstream Park West meet – which launches a 40-day run Saturday and continues through Nov. 28 – especially for those who have raced regularly at what was originally known as Calder Race Course since this track first opened nearly 50 years ago.

Gulfstream Park is in the sixth and final year of a lease it signed with the track’s owner, Churchill Downs Inc. That means this will be the final year of racing at a site most locals still fondly refer to as Calder.

“We’ll continue to lease the barn area and track through March to help get us through the winter while we build new barns at Palm Meadows,” said Bill Badgett, executive director of Florida racing operations for The Stronach Group, which owns Gulfstream Park. “But it’s a little surreal and very sad to think this is going to be the last year of racing at this place.”

:: Start earning weekly cashback on your wagering today. Click to learn more.

The Gulfstream Park West meet has served as a bridge between the Gulfstream Park spring-summer meet and its championship session, which begins in early December.

“We’ve been able to utilize this time period to give the turf course a rest and do whatever else was necessary to prepare Gulfstream Park for the championship meet,” Badgett said. “And the experience here hasn’t been that bad. It was a little disappointing when they tore the grandstand down. But other than that, it’s been pretty much status quo. We put a lot of money into the place when we first took it over to maintain the barn area and turf course. Things started off a bit tentatively at first, but the horsemen have supported the meet well and business has been very good over the years.”

Badgett said the purse structure should be pretty much the same during the final 40 days at Gulfstream Park West as it has been over the past several seasons.

“We took out the 2-year-old stakes and put them into the championship meet, which allows us to pretty much maintain the daily purses,” Badgett explained. “We picked up some nice outfits from Tampa who supported our spring and summer meets, and they’ll stay until they go back to Tampa later this fall. We’re also hoping people will come out of Monmouth a little earlier. And with the uncertainty of the racing schedule in New York this winter, we have seen an increase in our stall applications for the championship meet, which could help us some here as well.”

:: Click to learn about our DRF's Free Past Performance program.

No spectators will be allowed throughout the meet, with owners allowed to attend only when they have a horse competing on the card.

“We’ve had a good run down here, so we’re being overly cautious with the protocols we’ve set in place here,” Badgett said. “Hopefully if the numbers go down in this area, we’ll be able to put something in place to have spectators during the championship meet.”

Racing will be conducted on a Wednesday-through-Sunday basis with the exception of a card on Monday, Oct. 12, and no racing on Thanksgiving Day.

The opening-day feature is a $38,000 optional-claiming and allowance race for statebred fillies and mares that lured a field of 10 for turf, plus four main-track-only entrants. The field is led by last-out winners Daddy’s Joy, Dahlonega, and Twice as Magical.