Photo:

Eclipse Sportswire

Lexington, Ky.

The troubled turf course at Churchill Downs has the green
light to host a limited number of races this fall with one executive saying the
early weeks of the meet will determine how much it is used later in the year.

“It looks good,” the track’s vice president and racing
secretary Ben Huffman said Saturday at Keeneland. “We have turf races in the condition
book for the first half of the meet.”

To be exact, there are 22 grass races listed for the first 15 days of the meet
that begins in two weeks on Oct. 27, and then runs Wednesday-Sunday through
Dec. 1. There are no more than two on any given card until the Claiming Crown
on Nov. 16, when there will be three. There are three days in the early book
that have no turf races at all.

“We’re going to baby it along,” Huffman said. “If it goes
well, we will add more races in the second half of the meet.”

Churchill Downs spent $10 million to rebuild its turf course
three years ago, closing it after the spring meet in 2021 and reopening it in
time for Kentucky Derby week the following year. Horsemen and jockeys quickly
complained about loose footing, and grass racing was abandoned in June 2022.

There were only 10 races run on the turf the rest of that
year, including two on a special day of racing that August for the temporary
move of the Grade 1 Arlington Million.

At least 13 horse deaths in 2023 on both the dirt and turf
tracks led Churchill Downs to move the final month of the spring meet to Ellis
Park. The grass course was reactivated when racing resumed at Churchill in
September 2023, but it was used less and less as the year wore on.

Track management said the organic mixture of the grass has
been reworked since the new course was installed. Between that and what Hoffman
said was more favorable weather for much of this year, the turf has been pronounced
ready for some racing and training this fall.

“We were hopeful to run in September,” Churchill Downs
spokesperson Darren Rogers told Horse Racing Nation in July. “But with
the great number of grass opportunities during that three-week time period
before and after at Ellis Park along with Kentucky Downs and Keeneland on the
horizon, we felt it was best, let’s go ahead and let it continue the process
(and) stay off it for that three-week meet. And then we’ll come back having
maximum performance for the fall and in the next spring.”