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Kentucky Downs Will Raise Three Stakes Purses If Those Fields Have Grade I Winner

The seven-day FanDuel Meet at Kentucky Downs could have up to six races worth $1 million for registered Kentucky-breds with purse incentives added to the $750,000 GIII Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf, $600,000 GII Franklin-Simpson and $600,000 GIII Mint Ladies Sprint.

Kentucky Downs will bump any of those purses to $1 million, including money from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF), if a Grade or Group 1 winner starts in that stakes race. The increase will match the purse structure for Kentucky Downs' three existing $1 million races, with $550,000 in association money that every horse runs for regardless of where it was born and an additional $450,000 in KTDF supplements.

“This is just another step as Kentucky Downs works to improve its racing program and to reward horse owners who make this great industry possible,” said Ted Nicholson, Kentucky Downs' Vice President for Racing. “We've been fortunate to receive graded designation for a number stakes in recent years, and now the objective is to get them upgraded. The ultimate goal is to get a Grade I designation.

“In that regard, money talks–or certainly helps. The KTDF makes it possible for us to have $1 million races for Kentucky-breds, which dominate racing. But we also want to make the base purse attractive to horsemen who have quality horses that weren't born in the commonwealth.”

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MSW Purses to Trend Upward at Keeneland, Churchill

Purses for maiden special weight (MSW) races are projected to trend upward this spring at both Keeneland Race Course and Churchill Downs.

Track executives disclosed the pre-condition book figures during Tuesday's Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF) advisory board meeting.

“The MSWs for older horses are going to be $100,000. And the [MSW races for] 2-year-olds are going to be $80,000,” said Keeneland's vice president of racing, Gatewood Bell.

At Keeneland's 2021 spring meet, the comparable MSW purse levels were $79,000 and $60,000.

Mike Ziegler, the senior vice president and general manager at Churchill, told KTDF board members that, “We have yet to finalize our purse structure for the upcoming meet. I expect them to be probably right in line with where they were in the fall, which was at $120,000 for [MSW races].”

In the spring of 2021, Churchill carded two levels of MSW money. For the lead-in to the GI Kentucky Derby, the purses were $115,000. After that, those races were written for $100,000.

Bell also outlined the allowance purse structure for Keeneland's April meet: Starting at the 1x condition, purses will be $110,000, with consecutive bumps upward of $10,000 for each the 2x, 3x, and open allowance levels, maxing out at $140,000.

Rick Hiles, the president of the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association, said, “I think it's great. Just don't leave out the claiming races. Make sure the guys that are running their horses in the claiming races every day are well-compensated, too.”

Bell said he agreed, and that Keeneland's condition book–which will come out later this week or sometime next week–will reflect claiming purse increases “just to help bolster those races that [don't] qualify for the KTDF funds.”

When prodded by KTDF advisory committee chair Bill Landes, III to give a glimpse of what purse levels might look like in the fall when Keeneland hosts the Breeders' Cup, Bell said the “hope [is] that it'll carry from the spring right into the fall and look fairly similar.”

When Churchill follows Keeneland in the spring rotation, it will open this year with a new turf course in place. Construction and seeding of that surface prevented Churchill from carding grass races last fall.

Ziegler noted that Churchill will be adding three Wednesday programs in June, making for two five-date weeks of racing and one six-date week that concludes with a Monday, July 4, holiday card.

It was not discussed at the meeting how that outlying six-date final week might adversely affect the available horse population at Ellis Park, which has a scheduled July 8 opening.

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‘An Idea Whose Time Has Come’: KHBPA Wants To Add KTDF To Claiming Races

Expanding purse supplements for Kentucky-breds to include claiming races would shore up the state's year-round horse-racing circuit, keeping horses and jobs in Kentucky, the leading horsemen's association told a legislative committee Friday.

Rick Hiles, president of the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Association (KHBPA), said that while Kentucky's racing industry is thriving on many fronts, the exception comes in the claiming races, especially at Ellis Park and Turfway Park. Claiming races, the blue-collar backbone of American racing, currently are not eligible to have Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF) supplements added to their purses. Hiles told the Kentucky Legislature's Parimutuel Wagering Taxation Task Force that it's time to change that so that all horsemen benefit from the country's most successful state-bred incentive program.

“You need claiming horses in order to provide the opportunities for allowance and stakes horses,” Hiles said later. “It's time to acknowledge their important role and to let all horses born in the state and sired by a stallion in the Commonwealth benefit from being a Kentucky-bred.”

In claiming races, one of the conditions (along with distance, surface, age, gender, eligibility based on numbers of wins or earnings) is a price for which licensed owners can submit a “claim” before the race to buy the horse for that price. If successful, the new owner does not get money earned in that race but afterward takes possession of the horse. In Kentucky, claiming prices range from $5,000 up to $150,000.

Claiming horses are an essential part of American racing, filling out the race programs for the allowance and stakes horses. In Kentucky, claiming races make up about half of the races but account for only 17 percent of total purses. While no one advocates that claiming purses rival those of straight maiden, allowance and stakes races, Hiles said it's important that owners of those horses also have a shot to recoup at least part of their investment. That encourages owners and trainers to add horses, leading to added jobs for their care as well as increasing demand for Kentucky-breds.

The KTDF supplements, which often comprise 25 to 50 percent of a non-claiming race, are paid out only to registered Kentucky-breds. Those are horses born in the commonwealth and sired by a Kentucky stallion — a population which accounts for the vast majority of horses racing in the state and throughout much of the country.

While the other race purses have seen dramatic growth in Kentucky thanks to the implementation of historical horse racing, the money for claiming races has been largely stagnant in some areas. Ellis Park is the most impacted, being at a competitive disadvantage for those horses with Indiana Grand, three hours away, and this summer with many Kentucky stables deciding to race at Virginia's Colonial Downs. Ellis Park staged only eight races most days because of an inability to get enough entries to have full fields for claiming races. If those purses increased significantly, it would keep and attract horses to the state.

“If the KTDF were used to beef up claiming purses for Kentucky-breds, not only would I race a lot more horses at Ellis Park, I'd bring up horses from my Southwest and Louisiana divisions to run in the state,” trainer Bret Calhoun said earlier.

The concept was well-received by task force members Rep. Adam Koenig and Sen. Damon Thayer, who serve as committee chairs, as well as Rep. Al Gentry and Rep. Matt Koch.

“I agree with everything you said,” Koch, a breeder, told Hiles. “Especially the part about it costs just as much to keep a $5,000 claimer as it does an allowance horse. That's absolutely true. So many of the people who own those horses, they can win that month and the purse doesn't even cover the training and vet bills you have…. You go to Turfway Park this winter, those are the people keeping this industry running right here.”

Said Thayer: “This is not a new idea, but it's an idea whose time has come.… Not every horse becomes a stakes horse. Not every horse becomes an allowance horse. (Claiming races) are the bread and butter, the backbone of the sport. I think it's time we changed the statute and allow some of those KTDF monies to be used on Kentucky-bred horses that run in claiming races.”

Thayer advocated, and Hiles agreed, that the best way to implement such a policy would be through legislation enabling the expansion but with the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and its KTDF advisory committee establishing the parameters. Koch cautioned about making claiming purses too high, to where it might incentivize someone to run an unsound horse. While agreeing that no one wants that, Kentucky HBPA executive director Marty Maline later observed that there are safeguards in place, including additional veterinary checks, to keep unsound horses at any level from competing and that horses making a significant drop in class get special scrutiny.

The Kentucky HBPA projects that KTDF on claiming races would add between $5 million-$10 million a year to those purses, if applied at the approximate percentages of other races. That is more than offset by the growth of historical horse racing, with no cannibalization of money offered on existing KTDF races, the organization said.

Claiming horses also provide a stream of revenue to the state's General Fund via the 6-percent state sales tax applied every time a horse is claimed. Through Nov. 13, a total of 923 horses had been claimed in Kentucky for a total of $22,400,500 with 27 days of racing left in the 2021. That accounts for $1,362,030 in sales tax.

“Anything that makes the sport stronger and more accessible, I'm for,” Gentry said of his support for KTDF expansion.

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Turfway MSW Purses Could Nearly Double to $60,000

Turfway Park executives are projecting purses for maiden special weight (MSW) races to nearly double to about $60,000 for the upcoming dual meets that will be run December through March.

Last season, Turfway paid out just $32,000 for MSW races while conducting meets heavily compromised by both the COVID-19 pandemic and a massive grandstand rebuild that kept the northern Kentucky oval closed to on-track spectators.

Turfway's 2021-22 MSW purse projection was disclosed Tuesday during a Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF) advisory board meeting by Tyler Picklesimer, the track's director of racing and racing secretary.

Picklesimer did caution that Turfway's MSW purse figure is not yet finalized, qualifying his estimate by saying “I'm guessing $60,000-ish” when asked by KTDF chair Bill Landes III what to expect.

But Picklesimer also added that Turfway's stakes program could be in for an upgrade too: “I think we're going to bring back the historic stakes schedule of years ago; you know, a stakes every weekend,” he said during the Oct. 5 videoconference.

Although Turfway's projections were met with praise by some industry stakeholders and KTDF board members, it must be noted that last season's MSW purses fell well short of what a company executive had told the KTDF to expect.

One year ago this week during a similar KTDF meeting, Turfway executives had expressed a desire to hold average daily purses steady from 2019-20 to 2020-21 levels, which would have put MSW purses in the $46,000-$48,000 range. The actual figure of $32,000 ended up being about 30% lower than that estimate.

Rick Hiles, who is the president of the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association and also a KTDF advisory committee member, said that Turfway's longer-term future now seems so bright that the track should consider upgrading its backstretch area to get ready for the influx of outfits that will want to race there once the frontside construction project is complete.

“If it's true what Tyler said that [MSW races] are going to be around $60,000, that will exceed Gulfstream and Fair Grounds racetrack right there for purses, so a lot of the Kentucky guys that have been going south may elect to stay home because of expenses,” Hiles said.

Chip Bach, Turfway's general manager, concurred with Hiles that stabling improvements are overdue at his track, but he explained they are on the company's radar for future upgrades.

“No one knows that we need work on our backside more than we do,” Bach said. “There's nothing that's been approved yet, but I know that there are things in motion seeking approval and there are plans being brought up. So our eye is definitely on it. I agree with [Hiles] 100% that we've got an old barn area and we want to attract people to it, and right now we need to make some improvements.”

But the much bigger grandstand, clubhouse and gaming facility build-out will still be the dominant project at Turfway for at least the next nine months.

“The target I keep hearing is July 1,” Bach said of a potential completion date for the new Turfway. “There are supply chain issues. There is COVID; labor force issues. So it's really hard to drive a stake on a target date given all that's going on in the world. But everybody's very optimistic how it's proceeding right now.”

As for what horse people can expect in December, Bach confirmed that “you'll be seeing what you saw last year. We have these 'trophy suites' for the judges, for the announcer, for the stewards. We just have a major construction program 15 feet away from it. We won't have parking built for it yet. So there's not a real good way to get fans safely in to park and watch the races. We will make accommodations for some owners and trainers.”

Bach said heated tents that have see-through frontage to watch the races could be an option for license-holders. “But of course, we get a lot of snow in the winter time at Turfway, so some of these tent companies are reticent to lease us a tent in December and January,” he explained, citing fears of damage from the elements. “So we're still trying to figure out how to accommodate everybody.”

Construction is also on the horizon at Ellis Park, which is about to undertake a wastewater mitigation project with guidance from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to create horse wash stations on the backside and a retention pond to capture the runoff.

After that, according to Jeff Inman, the general manager at Ellis Entertainment LLC, “the expansion of the turf course will be the first in our line of improvements.”

Lights to race twilight or night programs are also on Ellis's to-do list, as is a new tote board, Inman said.

Inman outlined the timeline for the work like this: “The poles are partially constructed. We don't have lights. Some of the issue with that has to do with the wiring of the poles and the generators. Those generators, due to flood conditions, have to be placed about 15 feet in the air. Because of the EPA work that we have going on in the infield that we're going to have along with the turf course, it makes procedural sense…to start and complete the turf expansion and the horse wash water project for the EPA…before we finalize the wiring for the lights.”

Also during Tuesday's KTDF meeting, Ben Huffman, the director of racing at Churchill Downs, projected that his track's MSW purses for the upcoming November meet would be “probably in the $120,000 range,” which would be the same as at Churchill's just-concluded September meet.

During the pandemic-distorted 2020 November meet, Churchill carded $85,000 MSW races.

For November, Churchill will still be without a turf course, which has been in the process of replacement since the summer.

“It was a bit challenging filling the cards in September without a turf course, no question about it,” Huffman said. “There are plenty of turf horses on our grounds. But all in all, we did good in September and I think we're going to be okay this November. There will be days when it's going to be a little challenging. But we do want to attempt to fill the normal allotment of total races for the November meet.”

During the Oct. 5 meeting, the committee unanimously approved requests from Turfway and Churchill for KTDF funding, which means a recommendation from the advisory committee to release the purse money will be forwarded to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, which votes on the actual disbursement at its next meeting.

The KTDF is funded by three-quarters of 1% of all money wagered on both live Thoroughbred races and historical horse race (HHR) gaming, plus 2% of all money wagered on Thoroughbred races via inter-track wagering and whole-card simulcasting.

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