Woodbine opens 2026 meet; renovated turf course set for use in September
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ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine kicks off its 2026 racing season Saturday, the first of 128 scheduled days of a meet that largely mirrors the 2025 season while including a major twist in the turf racing program.
Racing will be conducted on Saturdays and Sundays for the first three weeks of the meet before Fridays are added on May 8 and Thursdays on June 11. Closing day is Dec. 13.
There will be a mandatory payout on the Power Pick 6 on Saturday. The 20-cent minimum jackpot wager, which was not paid out on the final day of the 2025 meet due to a mid-card cancellation, has a carryover of $61,064.
The 167th running of the historic King’s Plate heads a spectacular Aug. 15 card that includes five other stakes, most notably the Grade 2 Canadian, the Grade 2 King Edward, and the Grade 3 Bold Venture.
The Canadian Triple Crown for Canadian-bred 3-year-olds commences with the 1 1/4-mile Plate on Woodbine’s Tapeta surface. It will be followed by the $400,000 Prince of Wales Stakes, a 1 3/16-mile dirt route on Sept. 7 at Fort Erie; and the $400,000 Breeders’ Stakes over 1 1/2 miles on the grass on Sept. 27 at Woodbine.
The $1 million Woodbine Mile, which was won by future Breeders’ Cup Mile victor Notable Speech in 2025, goes Sept. 12. The supporting features on that blockbuster card are the Summer, Natalma, and E.P. Taylor stakes. All are Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Win and You’re In qualifiers.
The Grade 1, $750,000 Canadian International will be held Oct. 3 at the traditional distance of 1 1/2 miles. The Grade 2 Nearctic, the Grade 2 Dance Smartly, and the Grade 3 Algonquin are on the Oct. 3 undercard.
The $500,000 Woodbine Oaks for Canadian-bred 3-year-old fillies is set for July 19. The Oaks serves as the first leg of the Canadian Triple Tiara for Canadian-foaled 3-year-old fillies, followed by the $250,000 Bison City on Aug. 8 and the $250,000 Wonder Where on Sept. 6.
The popular Oaks card has three other stakes – the $150,000 Plate Trial, the Grade 2 Nassau, and the Grade 2 Connaught Cup.
The Canada Day Racing Festival is June 27. The deep program will include five graded stakes, headlined by the Grade 2 Nassau, the Grade 2 Highlander, and the Grade 3 Marine.
The renovation of Woodbine’s 1 1/2-mile main turf course is continuing. Last year, several of the track’s marquee turf events, including the Woodbine Mile, were switched to the inner turf after the restoration project began late last summer. Tim Lawson, Woodbine’s vice president of racing, said the course renovation is on schedule to be completed by September despite a harsh winter in Toronto.
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“Things are going well,” Lawson said. “We’re hoping for a short period of construction to lay out the remainder of the sod, and we’re comfortable with getting racing going in early September. We gave ourselves a pretty conservative timeline just to ensure that we can schedule our major turf races, the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series race, on the [main turf]. The weather hasn’t done us a ton of favors, but we’re seeing a milder patch now and the work is getting going.”
The New York Racing Association and Woodbine have teamed for a 14-race program of stakes races restricted to horses foaled in New York or Canada. Worth $3.2 million in total purses, the Empire Trillium Series will begin at the new Belmont Park with eight stakes to be contested between December 2026 and February 2027 on the one-mile Tapeta track. The series continues at Woodbine between April and July 2027, during which six stakes will be contested – four on the Tapeta and two on turf.
“It came about with Belmont transitioning to Tapeta racing in the winter,” Lawson said. “Myself and [NYRA] racing secretary Rob MacLennan were looking at ways to benefit off each other’s horse population and look for increased opportunities for our horsepeople to have the ability to run in restricted stakes year-round. On their end, this is a good incentive to attract Woodbine trainers who traditionally go south to get them to Belmont for their winter program. On my end, it opens up Woodbine’s product to a substantial number of New York-based trainers who don’t traditionally run with us.”
Mark Casse, Woodbine’s perennial leading trainer, is planning on being based year-round in New York due in part to the program.
“My owners are having me look at more New York-breds and Canadian-breds,” Casse said.
Entries are light for opening weekend, which is par for the course at this time of year, Lawson pointed out.
“It was obviously a tough spring with all the inclement weather and the snow,” Lawson said. “If you look at the past few years, it’s been a gradual start to get up and operating at full capacity. If it’s a slow rollout, so be it. We’re happy to be back racing.”
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