Keeneland Handle Improves Saturday, Sunday

The opening weekend at Keeneland Race Course, which marked a return to dirt racing for the first time since the spring of 2006, saw steady attendance and on-track wagering but total handle declined 5.7% compared with opening weekend last year.

Total handle for the first three days of the fall meet, Oct. 3-5, reached $29,422,273, down from last year's opening weekend turnover of $31,090,947. Most of the weekend's total wagering decline came on opening day, which saw a 24.2% slide that could be attributed to large players evaluating the new surface, poor weather compared with last year's opening day, and smaller fields this year.

While it wasn't enough to make up the decline from the first day, total handle on both the meet's second day, Saturday, Oct. 4; and third day, Sunday, Oct. 5; was up compared with the corresponding days last year. Possibly indicating big players finding a comfort level with the new surface, total handle on those two days improved 3.5%.



One additional race also impacted the Sunday numbers. This year's Sunday card featured 10 races as opposed to the nine offered on the corresponding day last year.

On-track handle, from which tracks and purses secure the highest percentage of takeout, was steady on opening weekend, down less than 1% to $4,030,632. Attendance also was steady, down 1.7% to 51,393.

Average field size for opening weekend this year was 8.4, down from last year's 10.1 starters per race during the fall meet opening weekend.