KY: Total, Average Handle Increase at Turfway

Blood-Horse

Turfway Park recorded increases in all-sources and average daily pari-mutuel handle during its recently concluded 2015 winter/spring meet.

According to statistics provided by the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, total handle on live races for 37 racing programs was $63,463,760. That’s an increase of 34.2% from $47,276,928 for a 30-day meet in 2014.

Turfway this year lost three full cards because of weather conditions; in 2014 there were six full-card cancellations and one partial-card cancellation.

Average daily handle this year was $1,715,236, up 8.2% from $1,575,897 4 in 2014. The 2015 average was impacted by a 22.5% drop in total wagering March 21, when the grade III Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati Spiral Stakes was held; this year’s handle for the card was $4,704,171, down from $6,072,197 in 2014.

“We had a good safe race meet, first and foremost,” Turfway general manager Chip Bach said April 7. “We saw improvement on everything except Spiral day, and we’re already working with the racing office to make it a better day next year. We had a disappointing undercard that didn’t engage the betting public. We’re working with horsemen on adding a few stakes—maybe bring back the Rushaway Stakes—(to the program).”

The racing office listed mostly maiden special weight and allowance events in the condition book for Spiral day, but the horses didn’t show up. With each passing year it seems fewer horses are returning to Kentucky from southern tracks in March, perhaps because the purses at those tracks are much higher for maiden and allowance races.

In a change from last year, Turfway scheduled three live racing programs per week in March versus two per week in 2014, and raced an optional program the Sunday after the Saturday Spiral program. Field size in March averaged 7.28 horses per race after hovering above nine horses per race in January and eight horses per race in February; the average for the meet was 8.22, up from 7.81 last year, according to The Jockey Club Information Systems.

“I think racing three days a week in March was a good thing, but we took a hit on a couple of horses per race that month,” Bach said. “So I don’t think we could add any days in March, but I’m pretty confident three days a week will work well.”

Turfway paid $5,057,567 in purses for the winter/spring meet, up 26.6% from $3,993,572 in 2014, according to TJCIS statistics. Purses averaged $136,691 per program, up 6.1% from $128,825 last year.

There were two purse increases this year, the first one $500 per race and the second $2,000 per race because of the handle increase that began in December 2014 during the holiday meet, which runs right into the winter/spring meet.