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Cumberland Run Harness Track Opens Sunday; Kentucky’s Newest Track To Race 12 Days In 2023

Cumberland Run opens this Sunday, bringing live horse racing to southeastern Kentucky for the first time and giving the state a third standardbred track.

Cumberland Run staged its harness meet the past two years at The Red Mile in Lexington while the five-eighths of a mile track was being built. The Mint Gaming Hall Cumberland Run — the part of the property that offers year-round electronic gaming, simulcast wagering on other horse tracks and now sports betting — opened in late July.

Kentucky's newest horse track will race 12 days: Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays from Oct. 15 through Nov. 7, with a first post of 1 p.m. Eastern.

“We're excited to bring live racing to southeastern Kentucky,” said Ted Nicholson, Vice President of Racing for The Mint Gaming properties. “We look forward to our purses increasing each year and building Cumberland Run into a harness-racing gem while continuing to build back the standardbred industry in Kentucky.”

Said Mike Tanner, CEO of the United States Trotting Association: “The opening of Cumberland Run strengths an increasingly resurgent state standardbred industry that will attract horsemen, both local and out-of-state, to breed and race horses in Kentucky. Together with The Red Mile and Oak Grove, Cumberland Run will comprise a circuit that makes a lucrative, compelling, year-round reason to be part of Kentucky harness racing. The sport's future is very bright in the Commonwealth, and I'm looking forward to being in Corbin on Sunday to see it for myself.”

Cumberland Run is celebrating its opener Sunday with a one-day carnival featuring games and rides for kids between noon and 6:30 p.m. Eastern. Admission and parking. While the indoor gaming facility is restricted to those at least 21 years old, the outdoor area overlooking the racetrack is open to all ages.

“I hope everybody comes out for opening day with our carnival event, bringing their families and friends,” said Henry Graffeo, Vice President and General Manager of Cumberland Run and The Mint Gaming Hall Cumberland in Prestonsburg. “We really want to make it an experience for everyone.”

There has not been horse racing in the eastern part of Kentucky since Thunder Ridge harness track 114 miles away in Prestonsburg closed in 2018. In addition to The Red Mile, there is harness racing in Oak Grove near Hopkinsville in southwestern Kentucky.

“The opening of Cumberland Run in Corbin will be the final piece of the puzzle in the new, vibrant standardbred racing circuit here in Kentucky,” said Kentucky Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, adding of Cumberland Run's co-managing partners, “Ron Winchell and Marc Falcone have made a significant financial commitment to both the thoroughbred and the standardbred side. We've seen what they've done at Kentucky Downs. I'm excited to see what they do at Cumberland Run. The standardbred industry is really going through a revival here in Kentucky. Cumberland Run will be a big part of that.”

Daily purses for overnight (non-stakes) races will average $110,000 a day, a substantial increase over the Corbin meets staged at The Red Mile. The minimum purse will be $8,000, topping at $20,000, better than or competitive with other Midwestern harness tracks.

“The overnight purses will be significant, and as a result I think we'll have a lot of horses wanting to race there,” said Jim Avritt Jr., president of the Kentucky Harness Horsemen's Association. “It gives folks a reason to stay in Kentucky for another four weeks.”

Horses eligible for the Kentucky Sires Stakes program will compete for considerably more. The meet will include Kentucky sires stakes legs and finals for 2, 3 and 4-year-olds with races categorized by gait (trotters and pacers) and sex. The preliminary legs will be worth $30,000 for 2- and 3-year-olds and $35,000 for 4-year-olds. Each final will carry a $70,000 purse.

For trainer-driver Randy Jerrell from Kevil in far western Kentucky, the additional race dates are even more critical than the enhanced purses.

“The best thing for the Kentucky circuit is that it is giving us more days to race,” he said. “We've had such a short period of racing before Cumberland Run came around.”

“A small person like me, it gives me more chance to make money,” echoed owner-trainer Jackie Gray of Lebanon. “It's very critical. For a track starting out, those are really good purses. And they should go up, and people get more attracted to harness racing then. That will help us, too. There will be more investments in harness racing. Once they see it, I think people will say, 'This is nice. Let's have fun doing this.'”

Cumberland Run, just off the Corbin Bypass, is halfway between Lexington, Ky., and Knoxville, Tenn. The track is located just a few miles off Interstate 75's Exit 29 coming south from Richmond and Lexington and from I-75 Exit 25 heading north from Williamsburg and Tennessee.

“We're getting into a part of the state that has never had harness racing,” Avritt said. “Hopefully the folks in that part of the state and perhaps northern Tennessee will get a chance to experience it. It's all about growing the sport. We hope to attract new interest and new fans. We hope folks will come out and see it.”

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‘Dream Come True’: Veteran Northern California Trainer O.J. Jauregui Headed To First Breeders’ Cup

If all goes well between now and Nov. 3, veteran Northern California-based trainer O.J. Jauregui will have his first starter in the Breeders' Cup.

Set to provide the career achievement for Jauregui is Dreamfyre, a front-running winner of Sunday's Grade 3 Surfer Girl Stakes for 2-year-olds going a mile on turf at Santa Anita Park. Stewards reviewed the stretch drive after Dreamfyre and runner-up Buttercream Babe bumped near the finish line, but no change was made to the order of finish.

Jauregui, a veteran trainer who's spent a lifetime in racing, was back at his base at Golden Gate Fields Monday morning. He reported all appeared well with Dreamfyre the morning after her neck victory as the 9-5 favorite.

“My groom said she was doing great. Everything seems good,” Jauregui said.

Dreamfyre, ridden by Hector Berrios Sunday, will now be pointed to the $1 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf going a mile at Santa Anita on Nov. 3.

“It's so exciting,” Jauregui said of the Breeders' Cup. “It's a dream come true.”

A daughter of Flameaway, Dreamfyre will enter the Breeders' Cup with a perfect 3-for-3 record. Prior to the Surfer Girl, Dreamfyre won her first two starts sprinting on dirt. She won the 5 ½-furlong Everett Nevin Stakes at Pleasanton on debut July 9 and returned to win the G3 Sorrento going six furlongs when shipped south to Del Mar Aug. 12.

Jauregui said he had considered three options for Dreamfyre after the Sorrento. She could either stay on dirt and stretch out to 1 1/16 miles in Saturday's G2 Chandelier, stay sprinting but face males in Saturday's Speakeasy at five furlongs on turf, or try the Zuma Beach.

“I was thinking she could get a mile but wasn't really sure because she is so fast. That made the Chandelier going a bit farther kind of questionable at this point,” Jauregui said. “And I wasn't worried about turf because of her pedigree. But the Speakeasy wasn't graded. We decided to keep her with the fillies, try a mile on the grass and try and at least to get a graded stakes placing. It worked out.”

According to Equibase statistics, Jauregui has won 376 races and banked $8,172,875 in purse earnings. The most wins he's had in a season was 35 in 2013. His highest-earning season came in 2021 when his stable banked $770,692 with 27 wins from 158 starters.

Dreamfyre was purchased for $140,000 by owner Danny Eplin at this year's OBS Spring Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training. She has earned $285,000 through her first three starts.

Jauregui said Dreamfyre would likely ship back to Golden Gate this week and then return to Santa Anita “a week to 10 days” ahead of the Breeders' Cup.

“It's the same thing we did for this race,” Jauregui noted.

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View From The Eighth Pole: Can Horse Owners Really Take Control Of The Game?

“The horse is the sport. The horse is the product. And the owner owns the product. Let me say this again. We own the product. Not the race track.” – G. Watts Humphrey, Jr., 1994 Jockey Club Round Table

“It's time now that the owners take back this game.” – Mike Repole, 2023 television interview

Here we go again.

It's been more than 30 years since Lexington advertising executive Fred Pope ran a series of commentaries in horse racing publications asking the basic question, “Whose Game Is It?” As an advocate for owners, Pope was clearly in the camp that said the game belonged to the people who owned the horses.

Pope created an entity known as the National Thoroughbred Association and with the support of the late John Gaines enlisted more than 100 owners, each contributing $50,000 in seed money in 1996 with the goal of creating a “major league” of Thoroughbred racing. Pope modeled the NTA after the PGA Tour, an entity controlled by the Tour players, who hired professional staff to negotiate television contracts and tournaments throughout the country on their behalf. The idea was for NTA owners to band together in similar fashion, creating a circuit of the best horses and the best races.

But there was a small problem in handing over to a group of horse owners the right to negotiate simulcasting and purse contracts. The Interstate Horseracing Act, passed into law by Congress in 1978, said interstate wagering – then in its infancy but now accounting for nearly 90 percent of wagering – could only be conducted with the consent of the host racing association, which must have a written agreement with the “horsemen's group.” The law defines “horsemen's group” as the “group which represents the majority of owners and trainers racing” at a given track that wants to accept interstate wagers on a race.

Having Congress tinker with the Interstate Horseracing Act is akin to playing with matches in a fireworks factory. Not a good idea.

The NTA never got off the ground, in part because the late Ogden Mills Phipps, then chairman of The Jockey Club, believed in consensus building with other organizations, including racetracks and existing horsemen's groups. Thus, the NTA morphed into the National Thoroughbred Racing Association and attempted to build a “league office.” But even the NTRA, with all the constituency groups involved, lacked the clout to set policy and negotiate purse contracts or anything of game-changing significance. It turned out to be another toothless tiger.

So Mike Repole said he wants to create a new organization of leading owners and trainers, but unless it can be proven it represents a majority of horsemen in a given state, this new entity would not have the authority to negotiate purse and simulcast agreements with a racetrack.

Thoroughbred owner John Ed Anthony spoke at the same 1994 Jockey Club Round Table as Watts Humphrey. He was concerned then that casinos would lead to the end of horse racing. Anthony wanted racetracks to decide: Are they going to promote casino gambling or horse racing? Either way, he said, owners would need a place to race their horses.

“In some areas,” Anthony said, “we may have to race in an open field and view the events from tailgates and the backend of pick-up trucks. But we will control our industry.”

Repole outlined his goals and some action items for the new organization he is proposing on the former Twitter social media platform now known as X.

Some might say Repole is a walking contradiction. During a nationally televised interview with Nick Luck at Keeneland last weekend, Repole said this of racing: “There isn't anything in the sport that is good right now.”

Yet, as Luck pointed out, Repole had just purchased, in his name or in partnership, some 43 yearlings at the Keeneland September Sale for more than $16 million.

Why, he was asked, make such an investment if the sport is going in the wrong direction?

“I'm a big idiot just like every other owner in this game, because we take this,” Repole said. “We take this from Churchill, we take this from other tracks, we take this from other associations. It can't happen anymore. If we want this sport to move forward, the only way is if the owners just take over control.”

Repole specifically mentioned Churchill Downs, where he's directed his ire for more than a decade. In 2013, when he had runners in both the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby, he complained that “they give you nothing” in terms of seating and he had to spend a small fortune to get family and friends accommodations in what was then a new section of Churchill Downs called the Mansion. “It's cheaper to buy a mansion than be in the Mansion,” Repole told the New York Daily News.

Ten years later, in a statement published in Thoroughbred Daily News, Repole said “the way owners get treated (at the Kentucky Derby) is an embarrassment. We buy our own tickets, and if you want more than 10-15 people, you have to buy your own seats. I have to run second in the Kentucky Derby just to break even.”

As Repole then pointed out, he hasn't come close to running second, and the regulatory veterinarian determining that Repole and partner Vincent Viola's pre-race favorite Forte be scratched on the morning of this year's Derby was only salt in his wounds.

Repole and others have made good points that the Kentucky Derby purse should be higher than the $3-million it's been since 2019. It didn't even get to $1 million until 1996, 15 years after the inaugural Arlington Million and a dozen years after the Breeders' Cup first offered $10 million in prize money in seven races, including the $3 million Classic.

Churchill Downs officials know they have the rights to the race that virtually every horse  owner wants to win, so higher prize money will do nothing to attract better horses. In other words, they'll raise the purse when they damn well feel like it.

Maybe John Ed Anthony had it right. Horse owners itching to prove they have the best 3-year-old may want to band together and start looking for a racetrack to lease on the first Saturday in May or find an open field to run their horses against one another. They can save money by foregoing the Churchill Downs Mansion and luxury suites and enjoy the races from the back of a pickup truck.

At least they'd be in control of the game.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

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‘He Does Everything So Easy’: White Abarrio Works Toward Breeders’ Cup Classic

It was a rough morning to be a clocker at Santa Anita Monday. With thick fog setting on The Great Race Place, at least two contenders for the Breeders' Classic worked. Only one received an official time.

With trainer Rick Dutrow Jr. in from New York to observe, White Abarrio worked five furlongs at about 6:45 a.m. He was clocked in 1:00.20. About an hour later, Geaux Rocket Ride went to the track to work with Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith up. Due to the fog, Equibase clockers were unable to determine a final time and distance.

Geaux Rocket Ride's trainer, Richard Mandella, said the Candy Ride colt worked six furlongs.

“We'd liked to have seen it,” the Hall of Famer said. “I saw him come through the finish line, that was it. He worked six furlongs. Mike rode him and said he went well. We'll go with that.”

The official Santa Anita Park Workout Tab for Monday notes “dense fog from 7:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.”

Geaux Rocket Ride, a 3-year-old, is exiting a runner-up effort to Arabian Knight in the Grade 1 Pacific Classic Sept. 23 at Del Mar. Prior to taking on older, Geaux Rocket Ride shipped to New Jersey and won the Grade 1 Haskell at Monmouth Park.

White Abarrio's work was his third since arriving at Santa Anita from New York. Jockey Emily Ellingwood was in the irons.

“He did his business,” said Chip Dutrow, Rick Dutrow's brother and assistant. “He does everything so easy. Just a very smart, classy horse. We thought he nailed it and Emily was happy. It looked like he got just enough out of the breeze.”

A 4-year-old Raceday colt, White Abarrio most recently won the Grade 1 Whitney going 1 1/8 miles at Saratoga on Aug. 5.

The $6 million Breeders' Cup Classic at 1 ¼ miles will be run Nov. 4 at Santa Anita.

Also working Wednesday towards a potential start in the Breeders' Cup Sprint was Speed Boat Beach for trainer Bob Baffert. He went three furlongs in 36.40 seconds. It was Speed Boat Beach's first work since a game second-place effort to Dr. Schivel in the GII Santa Anita Sprint Championship Sept. 30, which came after a nearly nine-month layoff.

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