At Halfway Point, Saratoga's Handle Up Slightly from Last Year

With 20 days down and 20 days to go for Saratoga 2024, the handle numbers are remarkably close to what NYRA posted in 2023. At the end of Wednesday's last race, $390,617,175 had been wagered on the meet, a 0.4 percent increase from the midway point of the 2023 meet.

Last year's racing season was a trying one for NYRA as rain decimated parts of the meet. A total of $799,229,288 was bet on the 40 days of racing, a decline of 9 percent from 2022 figures. The wet weather led to NYRA taking 65 races off the turf. This year, 24 races have already come off the turf.

This year's business has also been affected by weather. NYRA was forced to take all the races off the turf last Saturday on the day of GI Whitney and postponed two, the GII Troy Stakes and the GI Saratoga Derby Invitational. Dropping the two races from the card appears to have cost NYRA in the neighborhood of $5 million in handle. Whitney 2024 handle was $26,991,174. In 2023 it was $32,275,753. Three more races were taken off the grass on Wednesday.

Average attendance at the meet has been 25,917, a drop of 3.1 percent from 2023. Despite the drop, NYRA is again on track to have drawn in excess of 1 million fans for the eight-week season. However, on-track handle through the first half is down 6.2 percent.

Many other numbers are almost identical to 2023 figures. Both years, there have been 202 races run in the first half, which comes out to an average of 10.1 races per day. There have been 73 grass races this year, one more than last year.

Field size is up slightly, to an average of 7.91 runners per race. That's a 4.3 percent increase from 2023.

Irad Ortiz, Jr. leads all riders with 27 wins, three more than Flavien Prat. Chad Brown is comfortably in front in the trainer's race with 19 wins. Mike Maker is next with 14.