9/6 Churchill Opens 12 Day Meet
Aug 30, 2013 8:08:49 GMT -5
Post by Evelyn on Aug 30, 2013 8:08:49 GMT -5
Churchill September meet puts spotlight on Kentucky
By Daniel Kim
DRF
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In another September, horsemen and fans in Kentucky would be looking ahead this week to the opening of the Turfway Park fall meet. The northern Kentucky track was a vibrant place in its heyday. Ontrack fans enjoyed warm evenings outdoors, and the Kentucky Cup series occupied a prominent spot on the national calendar.
But that was then, this is now, and the new face of Kentucky racing in September involves an old one: Churchill Downs, where a 12-day meet begins next Friday, Sept. 6. Tradition and habit being part-and-parcel of racing, surely the greatest challenge for Churchill lies in waking people up to the most substantial change in decades to the Kentucky racing calendar.
“Horsemen are certainly aware that we’re running in September,” Churchill spokesman John Asher said. “But the patrons? Not so much, especially those who aren’t everyday racing fans. We’re going to be out there really pumping hard just to let people know it’s there. That’s probably going to be our biggest challenge − the awareness factor.”
To that end, Churchill has been using traditional means of marketing in recent weeks – billboards, radio, even a full-page ad in the Courier-Journal – as well as Facebook and Twitter to put its customer base on alert. Churchill will run four three-day weekends (Fridays to Sundays) during the month, the first time in its 138-year history it has run a September meet of such duration. Asher said September cards have been held at Churchill during 31 different years since 1875, the most recent being early-September dates during poorly conceived summer meets in 1983-84 and also in 1966-67, before customary dates were established on the circuit.
Churchill assumed the September dates after receiving support from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and also because business at Turfway has declined precipitously for years, with the presence of riverboat casinos in nearby Indiana the biggest of several reasons.
“The old theory that you’re only as strong as your weakest link is true,” said Marty Maline, executive director of the Kentucky division of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. “It has always been important to have a year-round circuit in Kentucky. The state’s original simulcast legislation intended for us to have some semblance of a circuit once we left Keeneland and Churchill Downs by trying to ensure that the smaller tracks wouldn’t drop off the face of the earth. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way. Dates have kept getting reduced at Turfway and Ellis, and their simulcast products have become increasingly irrelevant.”
Maline said members of the racing commission, working behind the scenes last summer, “approached Churchill with the idea of them running the September dates so as to fill the gap from the end of Ellis (in early September) to the start of Keeneland (in early October). And this is what we have now.”
Originally dubbed the “Homecoming Meet,” a label that has since been abandoned, the new September meet at Churchill brings some concerns that it will not be as well-received by bettors as the spring and fall meets. Churchill is estimating per-day purses at about $407,000, less than the $534,000 paid during the spring meet that ended in late June but well above the $240,000 track officials originally had estimated and the $97,000 Turfway distributed on average last September. A handle surplus from the May 4 Kentucky Derby is being used to help bolster the September purses, Asher said.
Churchill will run mostly dirt races during the 12-day meet; there are far fewer grass races in the condition book than normal, and none at sprint distances. That’s not only to conserve the seven-furlong grass course during this warm-and-dry period, but also because Kentucky Downs in the south-central part of the state is conducting five days of turf-only racing with lucrative purses.
By Daniel Kim
DRF
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In another September, horsemen and fans in Kentucky would be looking ahead this week to the opening of the Turfway Park fall meet. The northern Kentucky track was a vibrant place in its heyday. Ontrack fans enjoyed warm evenings outdoors, and the Kentucky Cup series occupied a prominent spot on the national calendar.
But that was then, this is now, and the new face of Kentucky racing in September involves an old one: Churchill Downs, where a 12-day meet begins next Friday, Sept. 6. Tradition and habit being part-and-parcel of racing, surely the greatest challenge for Churchill lies in waking people up to the most substantial change in decades to the Kentucky racing calendar.
“Horsemen are certainly aware that we’re running in September,” Churchill spokesman John Asher said. “But the patrons? Not so much, especially those who aren’t everyday racing fans. We’re going to be out there really pumping hard just to let people know it’s there. That’s probably going to be our biggest challenge − the awareness factor.”
To that end, Churchill has been using traditional means of marketing in recent weeks – billboards, radio, even a full-page ad in the Courier-Journal – as well as Facebook and Twitter to put its customer base on alert. Churchill will run four three-day weekends (Fridays to Sundays) during the month, the first time in its 138-year history it has run a September meet of such duration. Asher said September cards have been held at Churchill during 31 different years since 1875, the most recent being early-September dates during poorly conceived summer meets in 1983-84 and also in 1966-67, before customary dates were established on the circuit.
Churchill assumed the September dates after receiving support from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and also because business at Turfway has declined precipitously for years, with the presence of riverboat casinos in nearby Indiana the biggest of several reasons.
“The old theory that you’re only as strong as your weakest link is true,” said Marty Maline, executive director of the Kentucky division of the Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association. “It has always been important to have a year-round circuit in Kentucky. The state’s original simulcast legislation intended for us to have some semblance of a circuit once we left Keeneland and Churchill Downs by trying to ensure that the smaller tracks wouldn’t drop off the face of the earth. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way. Dates have kept getting reduced at Turfway and Ellis, and their simulcast products have become increasingly irrelevant.”
Maline said members of the racing commission, working behind the scenes last summer, “approached Churchill with the idea of them running the September dates so as to fill the gap from the end of Ellis (in early September) to the start of Keeneland (in early October). And this is what we have now.”
Originally dubbed the “Homecoming Meet,” a label that has since been abandoned, the new September meet at Churchill brings some concerns that it will not be as well-received by bettors as the spring and fall meets. Churchill is estimating per-day purses at about $407,000, less than the $534,000 paid during the spring meet that ended in late June but well above the $240,000 track officials originally had estimated and the $97,000 Turfway distributed on average last September. A handle surplus from the May 4 Kentucky Derby is being used to help bolster the September purses, Asher said.
Churchill will run mostly dirt races during the 12-day meet; there are far fewer grass races in the condition book than normal, and none at sprint distances. That’s not only to conserve the seven-furlong grass course during this warm-and-dry period, but also because Kentucky Downs in the south-central part of the state is conducting five days of turf-only racing with lucrative purses.
