handle

The 2021 Fall Meet at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Kentucky, closed Oct. 30, with record all-sources wagering of better than $181 million over the course of 17 days of live racing at the historic facility. When the dust had settled Saturday afternoon, all-sources wagering (not including whole-card simulcasting at Keeneland) totaled $181,009,626, obliterating the previous record of $164,680,229 established during this year's Spring Meet and the previous Fall Meet record of $160,207,916 set in 2019. This year's all-sources wagering numbers represented a 22% increase over last fall's $148,229,708. Keeneland...

Total all-sources handle at the Monmouth Park meet, which wrapped up Sunday, Sept. 26, showed an increase, hardly a surprise since this year's season included 11 more cards than the 2020 meet, which was shortened due to COVID-19 issues. Monmouth didn't fare nearly as well in the more relevant category of daily average handle. During this year's 55-day meet, average daily handle was $3,154,748, a decline of 17.13% over 2020 figures, when the average handle was $3,807,082. The 2020 Monmouth meet consisted of 44 cards. The decline begs the question:...

Assiniboia Downs closed the 2021 season with $36,609,401 wagered over the 51-day meet, the second-highest total handle in the track's history behind 2020 figures. Ongoing COVID-19 restrictions limited spectators and some horsemen early, but fans were able to return mid-season and some inter-provincial travel restrictions were loosened for horsemen, also mid-season. Trainer Jerry Gourneau won his third training title in the last four years and jockey Jorge Carreno won the jockey title in his first season at the Winnipeg track. "What another incredible year," said CEO Darren Dunn. "We are...

A total of $16,122,170 was wagered on Sunday's 13-race Queen's Plate card at Woodbine, including $3,491,564 on the feature. The total handle for the day is second-only to the 2019 event total of $18,005,973 and tops the 2020 handle of $14,532,678 by 11%. "This year's Queen's Plate brought the energy of our great sport back in full-force to Woodbine with an outstanding crowd and thrilling racing," said Jim Lawson. "It's evident that this excitement was felt across North America and we're elated to see the support this great day of...

Wagering essentially stayed the same in July compared to the same month from 2020 while still showing marked improvement over corresponding 2019 numbers, according to the latest economic indicators released by Equibase. Purses continued to rise over last year's pandemic-affected levels and eclipsed 2019 numbers for July. Overall, $1,101,617,446 was wagered on U.S. races in July 2021, compared to $1,098,021,143 in 2020, a slight uptick of 0.33%. In July of 2019, $942,243,633 was wagered, making last month's numbers a 16.91% increase over that figure. With the number of race days...

Handle for the opening four-day week of the Saratoga meet soared to more than $90 million, easily besting the corresponding 2020 and 2019 numbers. The New York Racing Association added a day to the previous three-day opening week Saratoga schedule in 2019. The exact handle total for the 41-race week was $90,112,254, an increase of 12.18% from last year's number of $80,325,660, which was affected by the lack of spectators at Saratoga due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also represents an increase of 22.7% from the $73,441,101 total in 2019....

The 25th season of Thoroughbred racing at Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie just outside of Dallas concluded July 11 with handle figures their largest since 2006. The figures do not include last year's pandemic season. Daily merged (i.e. live, on-track plus export) handle totaled $1,693,866 for the 48-day meet, while a daily average of $1,459,096 in export handle. On-track fans wagered $234,770 daily, the most since 2018. Average daily attendance on weekends and holidays for the meet was just over 4,000 per day, just a 4% decline from 2019....

Because of the pandemic in 2020, six-race cards on Fridays and a run of rainy weather to start this year's meet, apples-to-apples, year-over-year handle comparisons aren't easy to come by at Monmouth. But all indications are that the Jersey Shore track has gotten off to a poor start, and that raises an important question--are bettors staying away because of the new rules that prohibit whipping? Sunday's card was the first of the meet where all the scheduled races were run on the turf and there was not an abundance of...

With a stellar eight Grade I races on the card including the 153rd Belmont S. presented by NYRA Bets, Belmont Park generated all-sources handle of $112,725,278 Saturday. The amount marks a New York Racing Association (NYRA) record for a non-Triple Crown year, in spite of limited attendance and restrictions on track due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 all-sources handle is a greater than 10% increase over the previous non-Triple Crown record of $102,163,280, set in 2019. On-track handle for the 13-race card was $7,532,571. All-sources handle on the Belmont...

The card for the 84th GI Runhappy Santa Anita Derby produced all-sources pari-mutuel handle of $24,282,400 Saturday. This was the largest Santa Anita Derby day handle since 2007. In addition, fans returned to the Arcadia oval on a restricted basis, with 8,246 on-track for the 12-race program. It was the first time in over a year that fans were allowed back at Santa Anita since the COVID-19 pandemic began last winter. Rock Your World (Candy Ride {Arg}) saluted in the day's feature event, the GI Runhappy Santa Anita Derby for...

There's plenty to talk about in racing these days, and NTRA CEO Alex Waldrop joined the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland Wednesday morning to dig into a good deal of the sport's most pressing topics. Calling in via Zoom as the Green Group Guest of the Week, Waldrop talked about how to capitalize and sustain the positive handle trends of the past year, how to pay for the groundbreaking Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, what movement he expects on H-2B visas with a new administration and more. "Looking back...

With $959,602,269 wagered, total all-sources handle for the sport rose by 9.57% in January, according to figures released Thursday by Equibase. The January numbers reflected a fairly seamless comparison between January 2021 and January 2020 because the racing schedules for both months were not impacted by the coronavirus. There were 2,211 races run this year, only a slight drop from the 2020 number of 2,352. Based on the amount wagered per race day, the industry saw an increase of 21.6 %. Comparing figures during most of 2020 was particularly difficult...