Keeneland Race Course is projecting overall purses for the upcoming April meet to increase in the range of 10-12%, with maiden special weight (MSW) purses for 3-year-olds and up rising to $110,000 after that MSW figure had plateaued at $100,000 for the past three springs.
Churchill Downs plans to card 3-and-up MSW races at $120,000 during its April-June meet, a level that hasn't changed since 2022.
Executives from both tracks disclosed those spring 2025 purse projections during the Jan. 28 Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund (KTDF) advisory board meeting.
Rick Hiles, a board member of the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Association, who represents that organization on the KTDF board, spoke up during Tuesday's meeting to express a concern that not enough KTDF funding–and not enough overall purse money and racing opportunities in general–are trickling down to owners and trainers who compete at the lower end of the purse structure.
“I'm not asking for a lot,” Hiles said, noting that there needs to be an alternative beyond stacking both KTDF and track money “on the top end.”
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.
“The idea was to make sure that everybody gets part of the KTDF,” Hiles said. “The small guys and breeders.”
Ben Huffman, who is both the racing secretary at Keeneland and the vice president of racing for Churchill, addressed Hiles's point by conceding that lower-level races could use some shoring up.
“The claiming races are there,” Huffman said when speaking on behalf of Keeneland. “They're just not filling as well as we'd like them. So it's not like we're not offering them. We'd like to see that number up a little higher also.”
Later, figuratively putting on his Churchill hat, Huffman made essentially the same point when speaking about how at Churchill in springtime, it is sometimes a “struggle” to fill open claiming and certain conditioned claiming races.
“I like offering the races in all the condition books we write,” Huffman said. “And personally, I'd like to see more of those claiming races that we offer fill. Because [the horses are] here. They're in this state. And we try very hard to fill as many as we can.”
Gary Palmisano, Jr., Churchill's vice president of racing, offered wider context on the issue.
“The reality is [in] Kentucky, it's the maiden special weights and the allowance races [that fill] and we're splitting them,” Palmisano said. “The claiming horses just aren't here [all year round]. So we, as an industry, need to figure out how to try and prop up the claiming races more, for sure.”
Palmisano said the seasonality of Kentucky racing is also a factor. Even though Churchill and Turfway Park share the same corporate parent, the two tracks utilize claiming races differently because Turfway's December-March meet that is sandwiched between Churchill's autumn and spring meets is populated by different levels of horses.
When Churchill races in the spring and early summer, there's also the matter of more tracks being operational in nearby states like Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and West Virginia.
“It's difficult in the summer,” Palmisano said, using the example of a $10,000 claiming horse whose connections can choose among a number of regional racetracks.
“Do you ship to Churchill to hook Steve Asmussen, or Brad Cox, or [any other big outfit] plunging in?” Palmisano asked rhetorically. “Or do you ship to Indiana? And you could run for $20,000 in Indiana [with a horse that would be competitive for $10,000 in Kentucky]. But if you run for $10,000 here, you'll probably lose your horse [via claim].”
Palmisano continued: “What we see at Turfway, is everybody just runs [by entering robustly in claimers]. They're the only game in town in the winter. When there's four or five different condition books sitting on your desk in the middle of June and you've got a $10,000 horse, your options are significantly wider, and the perceived competition is less.”
Palmisano asked Huffman to share with the KTDF board the ratio of allowance races to claiming races that Churchill cards.
“I don't have that number in front of me, Gary, but just anecdotally, I know the number keeps getting smaller and smaller, because some guys are afraid to lose their horses through the claim box in this state,” Huffman said.
“And we are just so 'good horse' heavy, if you will,” Huffman added. “A lot of good horses are here.”
At Tuesday's meeting, the KTDF advisory board approved the recommendation of allotment requests that the Keeneland and Churchill purse estimates were based on. The Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corporation still has to vote on final approval of the funding at a subsequent meeting.
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