No-turf Churchill meet opens on heels of all-turf Kentucky Downs

Kentucky Downs, with purses that have gone through the roof, is a tough act to follow, but Churchill Downs can hold its own.

A brief 14-day stand bridging Kentucky Downs and Keeneland begins Thursday, and while the money being given away isn’t quite as staggering as Kentucky Downs, which runs just seven days per year, Churchill has plenty to offer.

Maiden special weight races go for $120,000, which would have seemed impossible just a few years ago, while a $12,500 claimer offers a $32,000 purse. Churchill has no claiming races in its September condition book for less than $12,500, signaling the track’s shift away from lower-level competition. Still, regular claiming races of any sort have not been seen since the end of the Ellis Park meeting. Kentucky Downs cards maiden, allowance, and stakes races, some of the allowances with high-level claiming options.

But here’s the biggest shift in the Kentucky dynamic. Kentucky Downs runs only turf races, but Churchill will have none in September. The track’s troubled turf course, unveiled to great fanfare in May 2022, once again has been deemed unsuitable for use. Churchill continues to work on the course, which is showing improvement, according to vice president of racing and racing secretary Ben Huffman, and will attempt to conduct grass racing in November.

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Still, Huffman should have ample inventory this month. The Kentucky circuit might never have been stronger than it is right now. Ellis had a record-breaking meet. Turfway Park has become a winter base for stables that used to ship south. The increasing number of horsemen following the money and keeping racing stock year-round in Kentucky creates continuity and produces stronger entries – 94 of them on Thursday’s eight-race opener.

The meet’s four Thursdays have a first post of 5 p.m. Eastern. All the other programs begin at 12:45 p.m. except the meet’s final Saturday, Sept. 28, which starts at 6 p.m. That card includes two of richest races of the meeting, the Grade 2, $500,000 Lukas Classic for older route horses and the Grade 3, $400,000 Ack Ack, a one-turn mile that should have Saudi Crown as a favorite.

The Ack Ack is part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series. The Grade 2 Locust Grove on Saturday also offers a $400,000 purse and is one of five stakes, the other four worth $300,000.

The connections of Extra Anejo a couple months ago would have projected their horse for autumn stakes races, and while that still could happen, Extra Anejo is one of 10 in Thursday’s featured seventh race, contested at 7 1/2 furlongs and open to third-level allowance horses or $100,000 claimers.

The 2-1 morning-line favorite, Extra Anejo returned in May from his second lengthy layoff, and while the colt was eligible for a second-level allowance, he made his comeback in a third-level allowance and won nicely, earning a career-best 96 Beyer Speed Figure. In two subsequent starts, however, the Hanshin at Churchill and the West Virginia Governor’s at Mountaineer, Extra Anejo failed to run to his best form. Trainer Steve Asmussen cuts the talented but star-crossed colt back from 1 1/16 miles to a longer one-turn race that he might prefer.

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