Year-Over-Year Handle Up Almost 5% in May

With pari-mutuel wagering up for the Kentucky Oaks day card, the Kentucky Derby day card, and the Preakness day card, racing enjoyed a 4.82% increase in wagering in the all-important month of May when compared with the same month a year ago.

Handle on the Derby day card improved 4% to $194.3 million, Preakness day handle inched up 1.64% to $83.78 million, and Oaks day wagering jumped 6.7% to $46.1 million to help fuel the improvement as nearly $1.27 billion was wagered in May 2015.

There were five Saturdays in May in 2015 and 2014.

The increase in May handle came despite a 2.68% decline in the number of races to 508. Purses in May were down 2.29% to $110,490,872.

The wagering figures were reported by Equibase in its monthly release on Thoroughbred Racing Economic Indicators.

The strong month brought the year-to-date handle totals nearly in line with last year. Through May of this year, $4.55 billion has been wagered on U.S. races, which is down less than 1% when compared with the first five months of 2014. That performance has come despite a 5.28% decline in races to 14,912.

Purses have not done as well in the face of the decline in number of races. Through May when compared with last year, purses are down 2.8% to $397,463,749.