Turfway Park: Holiday Meet gross handle up, daily average declines

Turfway Park showed an increase in gross handle – both from all-sources and ontrack – at the recently ended holiday meet, but daily averages were down at the Dec. 1-31 meet.

The Florence, Ky., track ran 20 dates at the 2011 holiday meet, compared to 17 in 2010. Gross all-sources handle was $45.6 million, an increase of 13 percent compared to the same period in 2010, but the per-day handle of $2,282,263 was down 4 percent. Likewise, the gross ontrack handle of $2,222,148 was up 12 percent while the per-day average was down nearly 5 percent.

The good news for horsemen was that purses totaled more than $2.4 million, up 38 percent over the 2010 total. The per-day purse average of $122,398 was up nearly 18 percent.

Average field size dipped from 10.2 starters per race in 2010 to 9.4 in 2011.

Victor Lebron was the leading jockey with 31 wins, while Mike Maker led all trainers with nine wins. The ownership team of Billy, Donna, and Justin Hays led their category with six wins.