Churchill Downs turf has green light for limited racing this fall
Lexington, Ky.
The troubled turf course at Churchill Downs has the green light to host a limited number of races this fall with one executive saying the early weeks of the meet will determine how much it is used later in the year.
“It looks good,” the track’s vice president and racing secretary Ben Huffman said Saturday at Keeneland. “We have turf races in the condition book for the first half of the meet.”
To be exact, there are 22 grass races listed for the first 15 days of the meet that begins in two weeks on Oct. 27, and then runs Wednesday-Sunday through Dec. 1. There are no more than two on any given card until the Claiming Crown on Nov. 16, when there will be three. There are three days in the early book that have no turf races at all.
“We’re going to baby it along,” Huffman said. “If it goes well, we will add more races in the second half of the meet.”
| CD turf | Spring | Sept. | Fall | Total | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 101 | 0 | 0 | 101 | Turf course was rebuilt after spring. |
| 2022 | 59 | 0 | 8 | 69 | 2 Aug. turf races were run Arlington Million day. |
| 2023 | 48 | 23 | 17 | 88 | |
| 2024 | 74 | 0 | 74 | At least 22 turf races are on fall schedule. |
Churchill Downs spent $10 million to rebuild its turf course three years ago, closing it after the spring meet in 2021 and reopening it in time for Kentucky Derby week the following year. Horsemen and jockeys quickly complained about loose footing, and grass racing was abandoned in June 2022.
There were only 10 races run on the turf the rest of that year, including two on a special day of racing that August for the temporary move of the Grade 1 Arlington Million.
At least 13 horse deaths in 2023 on both the dirt and turf tracks led Churchill Downs to move the final month of the spring meet to Ellis Park. The grass course was reactivated when racing resumed at Churchill in September 2023, but it was used less and less as the year wore on.
Track management said the organic mixture of the grass has been reworked since the new course was installed. Between that and what Hoffman said was more favorable weather for much of this year, the turf has been pronounced ready for some racing and training this fall.
“We were hopeful to run in September,” Churchill Downs spokesperson Darren Rogers told Horse Racing Nation in July. “But with the great number of grass opportunities during that three-week time period before and after at Ellis Park along with Kentucky Downs and Keeneland on the horizon, we felt it was best, let’s go ahead and let it continue the process (and) stay off it for that three-week meet. And then we’ll come back having maximum performance for the fall and in the next spring.”