Kentucky Downs Vice President of Racing Ted Nicholson may have the easiest job in racing, which he'll readily admit. Thanks to the popularity of the Historical Horse Racing Machines, he's got a boatload of money to spend. Every year, it's the same thing…he has to decide where and how to spend millions of dollars. How do you divide up the money and which races deserve a purse increase?
“Business has been very strong on the gaming side,” said Nicholson, this week's Green Group Guest of the Week on the TDN Writers' Room Podcast presented by Keeneland. “So we continue to elevate our goals. First our plan was to get graded races. I think there was a number of years where we weren't getting the respect that we thought we deserved from the graded stakes committee. The money helps. We've seen that over the last few years. We now have nine graded races. And now it's just a matter of us elevating our game to the point where we're going to start getting more Grade I's.”
The purses, in a word, are staggering. Total purses at the meet add up to $37 million, there are seven races worth $2 million or more and 15 of 18 stakes offered at the meet are worth at least $1 million. Maidens run for $170,000. The purse for the GIII Nashville Derby will be $3.1 million, which makes it, after the GI Kentucky Derby, the richest race run in the state of Kentucky. (Non-Kentucky-breds run for less money than Kentucky-breds, but the pots for horses bred in other states or countries are still very lucrative).
Horsemen from around the world have caught on and so have the bettors. With races with rich purses and full fields, Kentucky Downs offers one of the best betting products in the U.S.
“As far as the handle goes, it has been growing every year,” Nicholson said. “I've been here 10 years now and every year we've gone up in handle. Last year we did $84 million in seven race days. I'm hoping this year we will reach $90 million, which would be outstanding. It's a great thing when you have a great product that people notice. Over the years, more and more, everybody has circled us on the calendar. It's a real challenge for horseplayers.”
Kentucky Downs still does not have a grandstand and the atmosphere is much like what you see at a hunt meet. But track management has also tried to improve upon the customer experience every year.
“We built a brand new pavilion for the horsemen,” Nicholson said. “That's right there next to the other finish line pavilion. It's big, it's tall, it's expansive. I think people are going to really, really enjoy it. We also added a suite that will be just to the south or further down the stretch from the chalet. So we're always trying to improve the property and improve the experience for the guests.”
In our breeding spotlight section, we took a look at the WinStar stallion Life Is Good.
Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders' Association, West Point Thoroughbreds, WinStar, XBTV.com, and Stonestreet Farm, the team of Zoe Cadman, Randy Moss and Bill Finley took a detailed look at Saturday's GI Travers S., taking a deep dive and going over the entire fields. The boys, Moss and Finley, picked the filly, Thorpedo Anna (Fast Anna). The girl, Cadman, said she'll be rooting for Thorpedo Anna, but made Dornoch (Good Magic) her official pick.
The team also previewed the four other graded stakes races on the Saratoga card and handicapped the GII Pat O'Brien S., which features two stars in The Chosen Vron (Vronsky) and Senor Buscador (Mineshaft).
It looks like Rich Strike (Keen Ice) will now be retired after failing to fully come back from a string of injuries. So where will he stand at stud? Moss picked Japan; Cadman picked New York.
To watch the podcast video, click here. For the audio-only version, click here.
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