Total Handle, Purses Increase at Ellis Park

Ellis Park concluded its 93rd race meet Monday, Sept. 7, with sizable increases in handle and field sizes as the track's purses have been boosted by gaming revenues from historical racing at the Henderson, Ky., operation.

According to the track, live on-track handle increased 17.4% from $4.3 million ($153,571 average) during last year's 28-day meet to $5.0 million ($161,290 average) for the 31-day stand this season. Total all-sources handle was $33 million ($1,064,516 daily) in 2015, compared with $30.5 million (1,089,286 daily) in 2014, an 8.2% increase, the track said.



The Jockey Club Information Systems showed average field size grew from 7.33 a year ago to 8.18 this year and purses increased from $4,449,200 to $4,974,567, in part due to growth of Historical Racing which increased 33.6% from $5.7 million in 2014 to $7.6 million this year.

 

"It was a very good meet," said Ellis Park owner Ron Geary. "It's gratifying to see what we had hoped would happen when we installed Instant Racing (historical racing) coming true and we expect our purses will receive an even more substantial bump in 2016. We greatly appreciate the support we received from the Kentucky horsemen, which is evident by the average number of starters. We are already getting excited for next year's meet."

 

Jockey Didiel Osorio earned his first leading riding title with 24 wins, one year after a solid top-ten performance in his first meet since arriving in the U.S. from his native Panama. The leading apprentice jockey of the meet was Sebastian Saez with 20 wins. There was a tie for leading owner between Allied Racing Stable (Chester Thomas) and Jack Frost.