Venue 09.07.2019
 

Let's play Kentucky Downs. An incredibly unique course, all turf racing.

Offering the following stakes:

Calumet Farm Kentucky Turf Cup (GIIIT)
Kentucky Downs Juvenile Turf Sprint
Kentucky Downs Ladies Sprint (GIIIT)
Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf (GIIIT)
Runhappy Turf Sprint (GIIIT) BC

Some links from Michael Wrona (who calls the races) tours the track and describes the lay of the land. Similar to some European tracks? Worth the watch!

https://twitter.com/Michael_Wrona/st...05469139152896
https://twitter.com/Michael_Wrona/st...10146446614528
https://twitter.com/Michael_Wrona/st...11427810611201
https://twitter.com/Michael_Wrona/st...13565131481093

What a great choice Plen. KY Downs looks like a wonderful change of pace from our usual fare. Don't know of any other track in North America with so many undulations in the course.

Should be very interesting. I was curious about the payoffs so I looked up the results for KD and Saratoga for a comparison.

Exactas and tri average payoffs at Saratoga on Saturday were:

$24 for exactas and $65.33 for tris

Exactas and tri average payoffs at Kentucky Downs were:

$85.70 for exactas and $437.27 for tris

So it looks like, there could be some very big returns at Kentucky Downs(assuming some of us can solve the handicapping puzzles that the races present!)

One of the reasons for the much larger average payoffs at Kentucky Downs has to be the larger fields. For our contest, a majority of the races have not only a full field of 12 runners, but an also eligible list of up to four more.

The very generous purses available at KD has to contribute to these large fields. I can't recall ever seeing a maiden race offering a purse of $130,000, as Race 1 does, even if that includes money from the KY Thoroughbred Development Fund. Every subsequent race has an equally generous purse.

A portion of the race conditions that intrigued me the most was the following: "Pari-Mutuel Wagering On Historic Horse Races Generated $113,100 Of The Total Purse". As I understand it, that refers to what is essentially a slot machine that uses a previously run race (the outcome of which is not known to the player) as its format. It seems to be used in places that prohibit slots but allow pari-mutuel wagering and tries to slip into a grey area between the two. It is very helpful when what is essentially slots revenue can do so much to support horse racing purses.