Churchill Downs adds Sunday racing to Kentucky Derby week
For the first time since 2010, there will be racing at Churchill Downs on the Sunday before the Kentucky Derby.
The addition of the race day after opening day leaves Monday as the lone dark day of this year's Kentucky Derby week, which begins Saturday, April 25, and concludes on Saturday, May 3.
Also new this year is a prime-time Kentucky Oaks, so the three changes to the eight-day span are:
- Post time on opening day is 12:45 p.m. EST rather than night racing
- Live racing on Sunday, April 26, beginning at 12:45 p.m.
- Kentucky Oaks post time is 8:30 p.m. on Friday, May 1.
“With the spring meet and Kentucky Derby week kicking off in the afternoon and the return of Sunday racing on Derby Week for the first time in 16 years, we believe our strong racing product will be well received by the local community, horseplayers around the country and our horsemen,” Mike Anderson, president of Churchill Downs Racetrack, said in a news release.
Tickets for the Kentucky Derby and spring meet will go on sale Thursday at noon. The spring meet runs through June 28 with 44 racing dates.
Kentucky Derby week handle has risen steadily this century, with a record of $465,060,806 across 68 races last year. Handle has eclipsed $400 million in each of the last three years and $300 million each of the last seven years that had a May Derby (no Covid).
The Sunday card on April 25, 2010, handled $5,231,735 with an average field size of 6.5 horses. Those numbers were down markedly from April 26, 2009, when Churchill handled $6,252,700 with an average field size of 8.2 horses. There were 10 races each Sunday from 2001 to 2010.
Sundays routinely outhandled Tuesdays and even some Wednesdays of Kentucky Derby week, though both those days' numbers now match what Sundays did 20-25 years ago.