After a couple weeks of racing at Kentucky Downs, looking at the first race of Churchill Downs’s 14-day September meeting, which begins Thursday, feels jarring. A dirt sprint for $12,500 claimers might be standard fare for everyday American tracks, but Kentucky Downs has no dirt and, other than high-level optional-claiming prices in allowance races, no claiming.
Reality returns Thursday, but a reality rosier than the one Churchill presented one year ago, when the track hosted nothing but dirt races during September. That came by necessity. The shaky Churchill grass course required a September break, but this year the course, troubled since its inception in May 2022, transformed. No complaints, no out-of-the-blue cancellations. Ben Huffman, Churchill’s vice president of racing, intends to keep it that way.
“The course looks great. We’re going to race on it, but we’re going to be cautious, too. I think there’s 20 turf races in the [condition] book,” Huffman said.
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Thursday’s eight-race program includes one grass race and begins at 5 p.m. Eastern, as do the other two Thursday programs at the meet, which consists of two five-day race weeks, Wednesday through Sunday, and four days this week before Keeneland takes over in October. First post for the other cards is 12:45 p.m., except on Sept. 23, a night card.
Huffman has made nothing more than tweaks to the September condition book, he said. A dozen horses were entered in that $12,500 claimer to start the meet with an impressive 89 entries, including also-eligibles, in the eight races. Those numbers will regress to the mean, and Churchill wound up averaging 8.27 starters per race at the 2024 September stand.
In a logical racing universe, considering the monetary incentive to run and the number of horses available, field size for the meet would stay at opening-day level. Purses on opening day total about $729,000, a remarkable number for a stakes-less eight-race program. Maiden races this meet go for $120,000. Huffman said he continues to receive far more applications for stalls than the Churchill backstretch, which has about 1,400 of them, can accommodate. The Churchill Downs training center is right down the road; Keeneland, Turfway, and the Thoroughbred Training Center near Lexington are a short ship away.
The trainers occupying those Churchill stalls haven’t much changed from a year ago, Huffman said. The jockey colony on a day-to-day basis will include headliners Tyler Gaffalione, Jose Ortiz, and Luis Saez; Irad Ortiz Jr. will make regular appearances. New to the wagering menu – a $3 late pick three with 15 percent takeout spanning the last three races each card. Every program has two 50-cent pick fives, the rake on those also 15 percent.
Stakes action starts Saturday with five races, the Pocahontas for 2-year-old fillies and the Iroquois for 2-year-olds launching Churchill’s series of races that will determine the starters in the 2026 Kentucky Derby and Oaks.
Oscar Season, who returns as a gelding from a three-month layoff, should prove formidable – perhaps at a fair price – in Thursday’s lone grass race, a second-level allowance with an $80,000 claiming option.
The featured seventh is a female-restricted, third-level sprint allowance on dirt with a $100,000 claiming option. It’s the kind of race that can be tough to fill. The purse is $141,000. Ten were entered.
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