Rain dampens opening-week betting at Saratoga

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Mother Nature’s wrath had a significant impact on opening week business at Saratoga where all-sources handle was $82,353,291, down 22.6 percent from the $106,401,827 handled during opening week in 2022. Ontrack handle was $13,519,819, down 20.7 percent from the $17,062,482 handled in 2022.

Rain impacted the Friday and Sunday cards, forcing all eight scheduled turf races to the dirt. With 41 scratches, Friday’s 10-race card had 54 horses.

There were 11 turf races run opening week. In 2022, there were 19 turf races run with zero taken off the turf. The 2022 opening week also featured a double pick six carryover into the Saturday card. The wager handled $2.7 million that day. This year’s card featured a one-day, $109,630 pick six carryover into the second day of the meet. That wager handled $737,003 in new money.

Field size was 7.27 horses per race through the opening 41 races this year compared to 8.76 horses per race in 2022.

Paid admissions, which includes season passes sold, was 103,561 this year, basically even with last year’s figure of 103,254.

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