Ellis Starr's spot play for Monday Sept. 7
Ellis Starr, national racing analyst for Equibase, handicaps the fourth race on the Sept. 7 opening card for the RUNHAPPY Meet at Kentucky Downs. See who Ellis likes!
Kentucky Downs: Where winning pays more
Kentucky Downs can’t guarantee those betting its races will pick winners at the upcoming meet, but the all-grass track does help horseplayers make more money when they do cash tickets. With the number of starters per race averaging about an America-leading 11 horses combined with low takeout rates, Kentucky Downs offers one of the best betting products in the country. Though Kentucky Downs qualifies for a higher takeout rate under state regulations, which set a cap that is based on average daily on-track wagering on live racing, the track chooses to stay at a significantly lower rate for all its betting pools.
Saturday's early scratches
Here are today's early scratches. Some horses on the also-eligible list for the stakes are staying in in hopes of a defection by 10 a.m. Central Saturday. Happy handicapping!
Day 4 betting: $7.3 million
Wagering from all sources on Kentucky Downs totaled $7,329,490 on Wednesday's 10-race card rescheduled from Sunday because of torrential rain. That's the highest for a weekday and third-highest all-time at the track.
KY Downs on track to topple betting mark
With the track’s first $10 million day in history Saturday, Kentucky Downs is on pace to topple last year’s record all-sources handle of more than $30 million, which in turn smashed the 2016 mark. A total of $22,060,345 was wagered on Kentucky Downs through the first three days of the five-date 2018 meet.
Gary West: Ky Downs is unique, but winning isn't
You've no doubt heard, sensing an unmistakable pride in the pronouncement, that Kentucky Downs is unique, owing largely to its 1 5/16-mile turf course, which from the air must look like a giant pear. As uniqueness goes, that's impressive enough and guaranteed to send a flutter through the pastoral heart. But for horseplayers, here's another and perhaps more significant reason Kentucky Downs has become something unique in America's racing experience: If you had bet $2 to win on every favorite over the last four years, you would have made a 5.3-percent profit on your investment. And that's — well, that's simply extraordinary, unprecedented in recent memory, or any memory, for that matter.