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Kentucky Downs’ Mint Millions Worth $2 Million in 2023

The GIII Mint Millions S. will become the first $2-million race ever run at Kentucky Downs, as well as the richest American turf race outside of the Breeders' Cup, when it is run Sept. 2 at the Franklin track. The one-mile Mint Millions offers a base purse of $1 million, with another $1 million from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF). Last year, the base was $600,000, with a $400,000 supplement from the KTDF.

The Millions was one of 17 stakes–including nine graded events–that was unveiled Wednesday for the track's upcoming boutique seven-day all-turf meet. With seven races worth at least $1 million, the stakes schedule offers $7.6 million available for all horses and another $6.4 million in KTDF enhancements earmarked for those horses foaled in Kentucky and sired by a Kentucky stallion.

The six other graded stakes offering $1 million in available purses are the GII Kentucky Turf Cup, the GII Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint, GII Franklin-Simpson S., the GII Mint Ladies Sprint, GIII Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf and the GIII Kentucky Downs Ladies Marathon. Those stakes, all carded for a blockbuster Sept. 9 program, will have base purses of $600,000 with another $400,000 available for KTDF-eligible horses, which reflect the vast majority of horses racing at Kentucky Downs.

“We are laser-focused on securing Grade I races for Kentucky Downs. Our 2023 stakes schedule is another step toward that mission,” said Kentucky Downs Vice President for Racing Ted Nicholson. “Our KTDF money allows us to run North America's richest two weeks of racing, including the potential to run more stakes worth at least $1 million during a meet than any U.S. track outside a Breeders' Cup host. But regardless of where horses are born, our base purses guarantee everyone runs for some of the largest purses on the planet.”

Ron Winchell, who with Marc Falcone are Kentucky Downs' co-managing partners, added, “We want the Mint Millions to be the pre-eminent launching pad to the Breeders' Cup Mile. Turf milers are among the biggest stars in Europe, and we're giving them a million more reasons to come to Kentucky Downs.”

Three other Kentucky Downs' stakes–the Sept. 2 GIII Music City S., the Sept. 2 Gun Runner S. and the Sept. 3 Dueling Grounds Oaks had their purses substantially boosted to $750,000, split evenly between the base purse and KTDF enhancements. The GIII Dueling Grounds Derby, also on Sept. 3, was raised to $750,000 last year.

The remaining six stakes will be worth $500,000, half from the base purse and the rest from the KTDF.

The overall purse structure for the meet is scheduled for $22.82 million–a track record for the 12th straight year since the advent of historical horse racing.

Kentucky Downs maiden races will be worth $150,000 for Kentucky-bred horses. And the track will once again offer a pair of $250,000 allowance races–one for 2-year-old fillies and one for 2-year-old colts–restricted to horses that went through the sales ring at Keeneland's 2022 September Yearling sale. Those 6 1/2-furlong races will be held opening day, Aug. 31, with all runners competing for the entire pot.

Kentucky Downs will run Aug. 31 and Sept. 2, 3, 7, 9, 10 and 13.

The entire 2023 Kentucky Downs stakes schedule is:

All stakes are on turf and include Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund supplements

Thursday Aug. 31 — $500,000 Tapit Stakes, 3 year olds & up who have not won a stakes in 2023, mile and 70 yards.

Saturday Sept. 2 — $750,000 Music City (G3), 3-year-old fillies, 6 1/2 furlongs; $750,000 Gun Runner, 3-year-olds, one mile; $2 million Mint Millions (G3), 3 year olds & up, one mile.

Sunday Sept. 3 — $750,000 Dueling Grounds Derby (G3), 3-year-olds, 1 5/16 miles; $750,000 Dueling Grounds Oaks, 3-year-old fillies, 1 5/16 miles.

Thursday Sept. 7 — $500,000 One Dreamer, fillies and mares 3 years old & up who have not won a stakes in 2023, mile and 70 yards.

Saturday Sept. 9 — $1 million Franklin-Simpson (G2), 3-year-olds, 6 1/2 furlongs; $1 million Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint (G2), 3-year-olds & up, six furlongs; $1 million Kentucky Turf Cup (G2), 3-year-olds & up, 1 1/2 miles; $1 million The Mint Ladies Sprint (G2), fillies and mares 3 years old & up, 6 1/2 furlongs; $1 million Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf (G3), fillies and mares 3 years old & up, one mile; $1 million Kentucky Downs Ladies Marathon (G3), fillies and mares 3 years old & up, 1 5/16 miles.

Sunday, Sept. 10 — $500,000 Kentucky Downs Juvenile Mile, 2-year-olds, mile; $500,000 Kentucky Downs Juvenile Fillies, 2-year-old fillies, mile.

Wednesday Sept. 13 — $500,000 Kentucky Downs Juvenile Sprint, 2-year-olds, 6 1/2 furlongs; $500,000 Untapable Stakes, 2-year-old fillies, 6 1/2 furlongs.

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MSW Projections: Ellis $70,000, Kentucky Downs $150,000

Purse levels for maiden special weight (MSW) races on the Kentucky circuit have been projected for the summer meets at Ellis Park ($70,000 through 24 dates in July and August) and Kentucky Downs ($150,000 for seven days in September).

Those figures were disclosed by representatives of those tracks Wednesday during a meeting of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF) advisory committee.

The projected Ellis MSW purses will be a boost from the $60,000 offered in 2022.

Kentucky Downs will remain year-over-year level at $150,000 after last bumping up MSW purses from $135,000 in 2021.

Ellis will be running its first meet under the ownership of the gaming company Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), which last September announced a $79-million buy of Kentucky's only Thoroughbred venue in the western part of the state.

Ellis executives said changes for 2023 will include an attempt to run nine races daily instead of eight.

The Ellis racing secretary, Dan Bork, said the stakes program will also be importing the GIII Pucker Up S., which had formerly been run at Arlington International Racecourse until CDI shuttered the historic Chicago track in 2021.

In 2022, the Pucker Up was initially scheduled to be run as part of the GI Arlington Million undercard at Churchill Downs. But the nine-furlong turf race for 3-year-old fillies was one of two races scrapped in an effort to preserve Churchill's slow-to-grow, new $10-million grass course.

Bork said moving the race to Ellis will come with a purse increase to $300,000 from last year's scheduled $200,000, and will place that stakes as the centerpiece of a two-day, seven-stakes turf weekend Aug. 5-6. The remaining six grass stakes will all have purses of at least $200,000.

As far as facility improvements, Jeff Inman, the Ellis general manager, said there is a lot of work going into the “water and drainage situation” that has long been a problem at Ellis.

“Churchill is taking some major steps to come up with a whole solution as opposed to the piecemeal ones that we have done in the past,” Inman said.

Inman also noted that “continued construction work on the grandstands” will start Apr. 6. “We are currently working on our entryway canopy to make a more pleasing entrance.”

CDI will be rebranding the Ellis simulcast presentation to standardize the signal with other tracks in its corporate portfolio, including transferring on-air talent from Churchill Downs to Ellis.

A new video board will be installed in the Ellis infield.

Kentucky Downs will race seven days again in 2023 after going from six dates to seven in 2022.

Ted Nicholson, the senior vice president and general manager at Kentucky Downs, said to expect the standard 10 or 11 races on weekdays, and 11 or 12 on weekends.

Nicholson said the hotel on the property will finally be open for the first time during a race meet.

Nicholson said Kentucky Downs “had tornado damage on a couple barns, so we're in the process of shoring those up.”

A new horsemen's “perch” is being built for 2023. Nicholson said it will be located between the paddock and the stewards' stand, with the weighing-in scale for riders being moved elsewhere to fit in the two-story, 25-by-25-foot viewing stand.

“It will allow for horsemen to go up and watch the race and get a better bird's-eye view of it than what they've been getting,” Nicholson said.

The KTDF advisory committee approved the recommendation of allotment requests that the Ellis and Kentucky Downs purse estimates were based on, but the full Kentucky Horse Racing Commission still has to vote on final approval of the funding.

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Turfway Msw Purses Rise Again, to $70k from $62k

Turfway Park purses for maiden special weight (MSW) races are projected to rise to $70,000 for the dovetailed dual meets that will span Nov. 30, 2022, through Apr. 1, 2023.

Chip Bach, Turfway's general manager, reported the projection during the Sept. 28 Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF) advisory board meeting. He also disclosed that Kentucky's recently rebuilt winter racing venue–with its new grandstand and updated stabling–will be shifting Saturday post times from early evenings to afternoons this season.

Bach said Turfway will card 24 total stakes worth $4.35 million in purses over the course of its holiday (19 dates over Nov. 30-Dec. 31) and winter/spring (48 dates over Jan. 1-Apr. 1) meets.

Turfway's signature race, the GIII Jeff Ruby Steaks S., will see a purse boost from $600,000 to $700,000, Bach said, noting that management is “not only adding stakes, but we're also putting a little bit more meat on the bone for those stakes as well.”

Night racing will remain a staple at Turfway on Wednesdays through Fridays, with an expected 6:15 p.m. first post, Bach said. The afternoon post time for Saturdays is listed as 12:45 p.m. on Turfway's website.

Rick Hiles, the president of the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, expressed a minor quibble with the timing of the first races on the evening cards. He said 5:30 p.m., which had been used in previous years, worked much better for both patrons “and the horsemen shipping, especially in inclement weather.”

Bach promised he'd look into a possible change to 5:30 p.m. But he added that “Turfway has changed. I can't base things on what happened six or seven years ago, because we had some really tough racing going on there. We used to really get killed in those first two races, going up against a lot of tracks that were going on at that time.”

However, Bach also stated that Turfway's quality of racing has evolved to a point where it might be better able to withstand the competition in that tight bridge-signal simulcast window.

“I think our product, it should be very good right now,” Bach said. “Again, that's why we're stepping into the afternoons on Saturday. We feel we can compete. It's going to take some time to win back some of the handicappers out there that aren't used to seeing us during the day. But I think we have a great opportunity to get back to where we were.”

Last season, Turfway paid out $62,000 in MSW purses. The dual meets were conducted with temporary trackside amenities as the multi-year grandstand rebuild was nearing completion.

The previous season of 2020-21, Turfway paid just $32,000 for MSW races, and the dual meets were heavily compromised by both the COVID-19 pandemic and the initial phases of the grandstand rebuild that kept the northern Kentucky oval closed to on-track spectators.

During the 2019-20 season, Turfway paid MSW purses in the $46,000-$48,000 range.

Separately, Austin Schmitt, the vice president of finance at Churchill Downs Racetrack, told KTDF board members that for his track's November meet, “Our purse levels per race type are planned to be similar as we are executing upon in September, so our [MSW races] are about $120,000.”

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Churchill September, Fall Stakes Worth $8.31 Million; No Turf Racing at September Meet

Churchill Downs will host 26 stakes races worth $8.31 million during its upcoming September and Fall meets.

The 14-day September meet, which runs from Sept. 15-Oct. 2, will include 11 stakes races worth a total of $3.36 million. The line-up is led by the $400,000 GII Lukas Classic for 3-year-olds and up at 1 1/8 miles and the $300,000 GIII Ack Ack S. for 3-year-olds and up at one mile–a Breeders' Cup “Win and You're In” race for the GI Dirt Mile–Oct. 1.

The meeting also hosts the first races on the Road to the 2023 Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks series with the $300,000 GIII Iroquois S. and $300,000 GIII Pocahontas S. on Sept. 17. Both races will also award points on the Breeders' Cup “Dirt Dozen” series for their respective divisions.

Racing during the September meet will be run exclusively on the dirt course to allow the track's new Bermuda-hybrid turf course to continue to mature to its ultimate potential. Turf racing is projected to return for the Fall Meet, which will be held Oct. 30-Nov. 27.

The Fall meet will host 15 stakes events worth $4.95 million. The meet is anchored by the Nov. 25 $750,000 GI Clark S.

Churchill will host its 18th annual “Stars of Tomorrow” during the Fall meet, with the $200,000 GIII Street Sense S. and the $200,000 Rags to Riches S. highlighting the opening-day card Oct. 30 and the $400,000 GII Kentucky Jockey Club S. and $400,000 GII Golden Rod S. scheduled for Nov. 26.

Churchill Downs will host the Claiming Crown Championship Series for the first time Nov. 12. The 24th renewal of the event will feature eight races worth $1.05 million.

The condition book of scheduled races for the September meet was released online Monday and features 135 races and a record $13,791,000 in prize money, for a daily average of $985,071. Maiden special weight races have a $120,000 purse, while allowance races range from $127,000 to $141,000.

All purses, including claiming races, include prize money from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund.

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