KY: Churchill Fall Meet to Start Nov. 1

Blood-Horse

Churchill Downs will open its 21-day fall meet on Sunday, Nov. 1 with a 10-race program. First post time is 12:40 p.m. (ET).

The meet covers a four-week stretch through Sunday, Nov. 29, and starts Sunday with the 11th annual “Stars of Tomorrow I” program, which is entirely devoted to 2-year-old with an eye on the 2016 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (gr. I) and Longines Kentucky Oaks (gr. I).

The 10-race opening day card is headlined by a pair of one-mile, $80,000-added overnight stakes: the open-company Street Sense and the Rags to Riches for fillies. Both races serve as local steppingstones to a pair of grade II, $200,000, 1 1/16-mile counterparts on the Saturday, Nov. 28 “Stars of Tomorrow II” program: the open Kentucky Jockey Club and Golden Rod for fillies that are part of the Road to the Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks series, which award points to the first four finishers (10-4-2-1).

A total of 130 juveniles were entered to compete on Sunday—113 in the body of the races, which would be an average 11.3 horses per race, and another 17 also-eligible runners in the event of scratches.

The first race on Sunday and every day except Thanksgiving Day is 12:40 p.m. (gates open at 11:30 a.m.). Sunday’s National Weather Service forecast for Louisville calls for cloudy skies with a high near 68 and a 40% chance of showers.

Over the course of the meet, horsemen will have ample opportunities to uncork promising juveniles or seek year-end graded-stakes glory. All told, 13 stakes races cumulatively worth $2.12 million— which includes four overnight stakes—will be run during the fall stand.

Last fall, the average field size was 8.56 horses per race compared with the 7.79 and 7.96 at this year’s spring and September meets, respectively.

The horses this fall will be vying for prize money of more than $10.3 million. A year ago, the average daily purses distributed was $359,081, and an average of $492,000 is being offered daily in the condition book this year.

The anchor of the lucrative stakes program comes on Nov. 27 with the 141st running of the $500,000 Clark Handicap Presented by Norton Healthcare (gr. I). The 1 1/8-mile test for 3-year-olds and up is one of seven stakes events cumulatively worth $1.38 million to be contested over Thanksgiving weekend. The Bob Baffert-trained Dortmund is among the early possible starters.

After Sunday’s opener, live racing will be conducted on a Wednesday-Sunday schedule. Most race days feature 10 live races, but there will be 11 on Saturdays and 12-race cards over the final four days, Nov. 26-29.

The only special post time of the fall meet is an 11:30 a.m. start on Thanksgiving Day—a Louisville tradition at Churchill Downs since 1969. Admission gates open that day at 10 a.m.

Also, the first pools of the 2016 Kentucky Derby Future Wager will be offered Nov. 26-29. The traditional pool with 23 individual wagering interests and an “all others” option will return, but track officials plan to debut the new Kentucky Derby Sire Future Wager as well, in which bettors can wager on the winning sire for next year’s Kentucky Derby winner. Much like the KDFW, there be 23 individual sires offered with an “all others” option, which means bettors will have multiple progeny to support.