U.S. total handle rises 6.5 percent in first two months of 2020

Winter handle in the United States has been surprisingly strong this year, despite substantial betting declines at Santa Anita Park in Southern California, according to an analysis of racing data conducted by Daily Racing Form.

While Santa Anita’s average per-race handle figure for January and February is down 8.1 percent this year – on top of a 10.7 percent slide last year – the average per-race handle for all tracks in the United States is up 5.3 percent, according to the total January and February data, which excluded Feb. 29, a Saturday and a Leap Day, from the analysis. Total handle for the United States, also excluding Feb. 29, was up 6.5 percent compared to the first two months of last year, to $1.704 billion. Races held at U.S. tracks were up 1.1 percent through Feb. 28, largely due to fewer cancellations this year because of a milder winter.

The overall and per-race handle increases indicate that the problems facing Santa Anita have not had a debilitating impact on the total U.S. racing industry. Given the large declines at Santa Anita and double-digit gains at many of its competitors, the analysis suggests that bettors have migrated to other prominent racing signals where field sizes have remained comparatively high, in some cases due to recent purse increases. In raw terms, $1.5 million per race card at Santa Anita has disappeared this year, according to the analysis, and that money appears to be landing elsewhere. (Santa Anita is holding an average of 8.3 races per card this year, down from 9.2 races last year, leading to a larger drop in average daily handle than average race handle.).

At Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Ark., per-race handle was up 15.7 percent through Feb. 28, on top of a 15.1 percent gain last year, according to the analysis. The average purse at Oaklawn has jumped 20 percent over the past two years, to $60,767, the highest in the United States during the first two months of the year. Field size at Oaklawn has been 9.3 horses per race, one of the best figures in the United States over the first two months, and more than two horses higher than the 7.2 average field size at Santa Anita this winter.

Average per-race handle at Gulfstream Park is up 21.8 percent this year, not including its blockbuster Fountain of Youth card on Feb. 29 (the card was held on March 2 last year). The gains are mitigated somewhat by a 9.5 percent decline last year in average handle per race through the end of February, but the 2020 winter number is still up 10.3 percent over the 2018 average figure. Gulfstream has averaged 8.3 horses per race this year, slightly down from last year. Its average purse this year has been $53,153, nearly identical to the average purse at Santa Anita. (Excluding the purses for Pegasus World Cup and Pegasus World Cup Turf, worth a total of $4 million, Gulfstream’s average drops to approximately $45,000.)

Handle at Turfway Park, where field size has jumped from 8.1 horses per race last winter to 9.7 horses this year, is up 21.4 percent this winter. The track’s new owner, Churchill Downs Inc., is using revenue from its casino in Louisville to double purses at the track. The average purse is $20,462 this winter, compared to $10,700 last year.

Aqueduct in New York also is having a stellar winter, with average handle per race up 13.8 percent, despite an average field size just shy of 7 horses per race. Total handle at the track has jumped from $146.9 million last year to $173.8 million this year (not including Feb. 29). The average purse has been $53,690, statistically even with Santa Anita. Purses at tracks operated by the New York Racing Association receive large subsidies from a casino located adjacent to the Aqueduct grandstand.

At Turf Paradise in Arizona, average handle on the track’s races has jumped 31.15 percent this winter. At Northern California’s Golden Gate Fields, which is owned by the same company as Santa Anita, average handle per race is up 8.4 percent.

However, not all racetracks in the United States are having a rosy winter.

At Southern California’s other track, Los Alamitos, which is currently holding a mixed meet of Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred racing, handle is down 11.3 percent per race. Average per-race handle at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans is down 12.3 percent through Feb. 28, but the track has lost horses to Oaklawn and Turfway (field size has declined from 8.1 last year to 7.56 this year), and it has canceled more turf races than last year. In addition, handle per race at Fair Grounds was up 23.8 percent in January and February last year, an outlier, so the betting number was likely to regress this year.

But all in all, most tracks, with the exception of Santa Anita, are having much better years this year than last year. What has been Santa Anita’s loss has been, for better or worse, the rest of the industry’s gain.