With some calendar tweaks, Oaklawn will race 65 days in ’24-25

Three additional December dates and another holiday Monday highlight Oaklawn’s 2024-25 live racing schedule, which the Arkansas Racing Commission unanimously approved for 65 racing days Dec. 6-May 3.

Racing will again be conducted primarily Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Oaklawn tweaked its 2024-25 schedule because of calendar changes and business trends, track officials said.

Oaklawn will be dark April 20 in observance of Easter and dropped another Sunday, Feb. 9, the date of the Super Bowl.

“Very slow day for us, usually,” Oaklawn general manager Wayne Smith said.

Oaklawn also dropped Thursdays in March and April. The only scheduled Thursday date is May 1, two days before Kentucky Derby 2025.

The Dec. 20-22 dates, a Friday, Saturday and Sunday, fall immediately before Christmas. Oaklawn previously had been dark that race week.

“Arkansas and Oaklawn lead the nation in a lot of things innovative,” Oaklawn president Louis Cella said. “Our fans respond to weekend racing. When you look at other tracks, their non-weekend days are very slow. We’re hearing many tracks are going to follow suit. Unfortunately, I think that’s just horse racing. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have big, great race weekends, as you saw in our season this year.”

Oaklawn is scheduled to race on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday Monday, Jan. 20, for the first time since 2018. It will continue to race on another holiday Monday, Presidents’ Day on Feb. 17.

There will be no racing New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, because Oaklawn is normally dark Tuesday and Wednesday.

“Just the way the calendar falls,” Cella said.

Oaklawn has had New Year’s Eve cards exclusively for 2-year-olds, including two stakes, the Renaissance for sprinters and Year’s End for fillies at one mile, the last two years. Its first Kentucky Derby points race, the Smarty Jones Stakes, has been run New Year’s Day the last three years.

Nothing has been finalized, Cella said, but making the 1 1/16-miles Smarty Jones a points race for 2-year-olds is on the table.

“That’s a possibility,” Cella said. “You flip them. You have a 2-year-old day, but you just stack up the stakes.”

Mystik Dan, who finished fifth in the 2024 Smarty Jones, returned to win Oaklawn’s Grade 3, $800,000 Southwest Stakes on Feb. 3, run third in the Arkansas Derby (G1) on March 30 and win Saturday’s Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.

Catching Freedom, the 2024 Smarty Jones winner, captured the Louisiana Derby (G2) and finished fourth in the Kentucky Derby. Angel of Empire, the 2023 Smarty Jones runner-up, returned to capture the Arkansas Derby and finish third as the Kentucky Derby favorite.

Mystik Dan punctuated a banner two days for 2023-24 Oaklawn runners at Churchill Downs. Six other Oaklawn-raced horses won stakes races, notably Thorpedo Anna in last Friday’s Kentucky Oaks (G1), the country’s biggest race for 3-year-old fillies, and First Mission in Friday’s Alysheba (G2) for older horses. Thorpedo Anna won Oaklawn’s Fantasy (G2), and First Mission finished first in the Essex Handicap (G3).

Oaklawn raced 63 days during the 2023-24 meeting that ended Sunday.