Two months out from the Dec. 3 start to its 65-date winter/spring season, Turfway Park is projecting maiden special weight (MSW) purses to be $90,000.
That's an increase of $10,000 per race from the $80,000 MSW purse level that Turfway paid at the 2024-25 meet.
But that figure also falls $10,000 short of the work-in-progress goal stated earlier this year by Churchill Downs, Inc. (CDI), Turfway's parent company, of having MSW races of at least $100,000 at all five Thoroughbred tracks in Kentucky.
Back in May, Gary Palmisano, Jr., the vice president of racing for CDI, which owns Churchill Downs, Ellis Park and Turfway, told the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF) advisory committee that the six-figure MSW level was a benchmark that the gaming company was shooting for.
At this year's Ellis meet in July and August, CDI raised MSW purses to $100,000 from the $71,000 per-race figure that was paid out in 2024.
Kentucky Downs ran $170,000 MSW races at the August and September meet.
Churchill carded $120,000 MSW races during the September season that just concluded.
The Keeneland Race Course meet that opens Friday has $110,000 MSW races in the condition book.
Even though Turfway hasn't quite hit that six-figure level yet, its MSW purses have been rising.
The $90,000 projection for this season is an increase over last year's $80,000. The previous two seasons they were $70,000. In 2021-22, Turfway paid out $62,000 for MSW races.
Although MSW purse levels do not tell the entire story about how healthy a track or a circuit's racing is, they are often cited within the Thoroughbred industry as a useful barometer that indicates the class of horses a track can expect to attract.
Matthew Shehadi, Turfway's general manager, said during the Oct. 1 KTDF advisory committee meeting that Turfway will be looking to boost other aspects of its winter/spring program while maximizing its slot on the national simulcasting calendar.
“We're looking to run 10 races a night in December,” Shehadi said. “During the December time period, California racing moves to Los Alamitos, and we see a really strong uptick in our [handle] performance, [and] that's also our highest field size each year. So we're going to try and capitalize on that with an extra race during the December time period.”
Shehadi said Turfway is also “hoping to bump all of our [claiming-race portion of] KTDF money up 10%. It's important to us that not only do we tout the maiden [special weight] figure, but that the bottom races [increase] in some parallel with it.”
Turfway also plans to card three additional stakes races so the track will have stakes “at least every Saturday” for the beginning of the season, Shehadi said.
“The three stakes will be conducted during the December season,” Shehadi said. “Last year, we ran four stakes and we bundled them together [on the same date] and called it the Turfway Park Synthetics Championship. That delivered almost two-and-a-half times handle last year, so we're going to build that out and keep focusing on that as kind of a December premium day.”
Shehadi noted that Turfway received 2,000 applications for 900 stalls. Stabling during the summer, when Turfway is not racing, has averaged a robust 800 horses since the track reopened for year-round stabling several seasons ago.
Turfway switched its track surface from Polytrack to Tapeta ahead of the 2020-21 meet.
At Wednesday's KTDF advisory committee meeting, Bill Landes III, who represents the Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, asked Shehadi if Turfway is making an “extra effort” to “maintain it and keep it in a safe manner” considering the extra wear and tear from year-round usage.
“Very good point,” Shehadi responded, noting that Turfway is in “constant contact” with Michael Dickinson, the founder of Tapeta Footings, regarding maintaining the surface.
Shehadi added that Turfway “spent well over six figures applying a gel treatment last October in advance of [last] season, which was a recommendation from Dickinson.”
Shehadi continued: “We built the track for three months of racing each winter, and now we're using it all year. So our capital costs of maintaining that surface have definitely gone up. But [it's a] pill we're willing to swallow for the fact that we have 800 extra horses here in Kentucky, helping Churchill, helping Kentucky Downs, helping Ellis.”
Landes also asked Shehadi about Turfway's willingness to potentially raise purses during the upcoming meet if a boost in betting business warrants a revision.
“Just file this away: Should you run into a windfall during this Turfway meet, do you have the option to expand your purses on the fly?” Landes asked.
“Yeah, I mean, that $100,000 [MSW purse figure] is what we're always trying to get to,” Shehadi responded. “And we're very close. But as I mentioned also, we do want to bump the bottom up, because that the bread and butter of our Kentucky circuit.”
The KTDF is funded by three-quarters of 1% of all money wagered in the state on both live Thoroughbred races and historical horse race gaming, plus 1% of all money wagered on Thoroughbred races via inter-track wagering and whole-card simulcasting. That money, along with funding from each track, goes to pay purses in the state.
At the Oct. 1. meeting, the KTDF advisory board approved the recommendation of allotment requests that the Turfway projections were based on. The Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation still has to vote on final approval of the funding at a subsequent meeting later this month.
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