Turfway Park Saturday Card

[fouroneone]

"Races 2, 4, 6 and 8 on Turfway's 14-race program will be simulcast from Kentucky Downs this Saturday. Featuring exclusively turf racing, Kentucky Downs will race solo on Monday and Tuesday afternoons for the next two weeks starting at 2:45 p.m. Eastern Time. Next Saturday, Sept. 24, Kentucky Downs will again race as part of Turfway Park's live program, featuring the Grade III, $200,000 Kentucky Turf Cup as well as three additional $100,000 stakes races."

Is this a first? Running part of a card at another track?

[cj]

They have been doing this for a long time at Kentucky Downs / Turfway.

They also do this regularly on the Ohio Circuit: River Downs / Thistledown, and Beulah / Thistledown.

[fouroneone]

They have been doing this for a long time at Kentucky Downs / Turfway.

They also do this regularly on the Ohio Circuit: River Downs / Thistledown, and Beulah / Thistledown.


I knew they had done it before, but i was curious as to if it had been done anywhere else. I totally forgot about ohio......thanks!

[Tom]

I think thiws a good idea - keeps from diluting two tracks.

I always thought Finger Lakes and Batavia/Buffalo should have split cards between tbreds and harness and run twilight or eveings. Of course, now that FL and Bva both have slots, the crowds are a lot better, and simulcasting kind of killed the need.

[cj]

They have also run a few t-bred turf races at The Big M at the start of the harness card, a little different type of split.

[midnight]

Kentucky Downs's short meeting has been combined with Turfway's for many years, when they run on the same day. They also run separately on Monday and Tuesday, when Turfway is dark.

The track is an odd little bird. It was opened in 1990 as Dueling Grounds (it got its name from the fact that "duels of honor" were actually held back in the early 1800's, among them that between Sam Houston and General William White). Steeplechase racing was held the first few years, then conventional racing. After financial problems closed the track for a couple of years, Churchill and Tufway bought the track and renamed it what it is today: Kentucky Downs.

The name of "Downs" (undulating, hilly), fits not only the area, but the track itself. The track has little ditches and hills built into it, and the rough spots aren't uniform across the width (in other words, over a furlong, some paths might have a ditch, some a hill, some both, and some level).

Kentucky Downs runs a lot of stakes races for its short meet, and the overall quality of racing is excellent. Good luck trying to handicap it.

[toetoe]

411 beat me to it. Thistledown and Ellis Park, I think, split the card sometimes. 1,3,5,7,9 at one, 2,4,6,8,10 at the other.

[Valuist]

Kentucky Downs is probably the toughest track to handicap. Horses that have run well or won there in the past are always alive and well meant. But class and talent edges don't always win there.

Biancone must be a big fan of Polytrack. Looks like he sent a decent number of horses to Florence for this weekend.

[ezpace]

Talk about horses for courses be aware