New Turf Course Debuts at Churchill Downs

Racing not only returned to Churchill Downs April 30, so did turf racing. The track's new $10 million lawn debuted after its construction meant no turf racing for the most recent September and fall meets. Like the television's $6 Million Man, the new Matt Winn Turf Course is rebuilt to be better and stronger than its former version. That former version, constructed beginning in 1985, basically had been the same since it opened in 1987 when champion male turfer Manila won its first race, what then was the Early Times Turf Classic. Initial reviews over the new course are positive. "From the outriders' first gallops over the track to the first exercise rider and jockey gallops over the track, to the first turf works that we've seen, we're thrilled with the progress," said track general manager Mike Ziegler. That continued with the first two races over the course on opening night. "I think everybody came off happy. For a course that's still growing in, everybody came off really happy," Ziegler said. The first race over it was a wire-to-wire mile win by Greg Foley-trained 11-1 shot Stitched, who came out of the race fine, Foley said when asked about the course Sunday. "I liked it last night," Foley said the day after, noting training was happening over the course Sunday after a storm delayed the last races Saturday night. "That's all good. The drainage has got to be second to none. "I just couldn't believe how well it rode; it really did ride like a carpet," said Adam Beschizza, who rode in both of Saturday's lawn events. "It's probably on the quicker side, if we were taking some comparisons to Keeneland." Beschizza said he couldn't see any bias, with one front-running winner and one from midpack, Other riders also have given good reviews to the drainage and condition of the new course. "The drainage was very good," Julien Leparoux said. "When I got up (on the track initially in the mornings) I think for like two or three days (before the meet opened), it was pouring rain out here, and it felt great and fast." Leparoux's assessment of the old turf course mirrors the opinion of other trainers and jockeys interviewed—the old course was at its best in the springtime, but it didn't hold up as the year progressed. "For some reason in the spring, the turf course was actually good and by the time we come back in September it was... the opposite of this (new) turf course now," Leparoux said. "It felt like, even if we didn't have any rain, it felt we had like 10 inches of rain the day before the races. It was crazy. The horses were going down pretty deep." He illustrated using his arm to show being elbow deep as if it were a horse's leg. "A lot of kickback. So I'm glad they fixed it." "I think once the days start getting shorter and we're not getting the 12-hours of beaming sunlight every day and they stick the water on it, I think it probably does just stop growing, Beschizza said. "It probably does have a bit of a 'sell-by' date during the year, and yeah, we would see that definitely in the fall meet here." With the old course, "the roots system was dead and there was no growth," jockey Declan Cannon said. "And basically (it) needed redoing. It had run its course. It just really needed to be replaced." "I'm happy to see them invest money in it and redo it because the other one was getting pretty chewed up, and it wasn't holding together," said Corey Lanerie, another mainstay of the Churchill jockey colony. "So it'll be safer for the horses and the jockeys." Among the biggest changes are a new mix of grass, improved drainage, and the removal of a crown on the outer part of the old course. The crown was there for drainage, but effectively eliminated that part of the course for running. The old mix was four-inch high Kentucky 31 Fescue (90%) and Bluegrass (10%) grown in a three-inch topsoil layer over a 13-inch course masonry sand base. The new course is Tahoma 31 Bermudagrass overseeded with ryegrass. "We did a bunch of research through our consultants and our turf experts and determined this blend, which is known to be a cooler weather Bermuda, is going to be the right grass for here, the right grass for Churchill Downs, because of its strength resilience to cold weather and tolerance to wear," Ziegler said. Track officials have said the new course has a redesigned subsurface with a six-inch upper root zone layer created with a blended mix of topsoil and grit sand that sits on a six-inch lower sand layer constructed with masonry sand. The old track generally was 80 feet wide. The new course—which remains a 7/8ths mile oval—is a uniform 85-feet wide, but as important removes the crown—a raised peak in the middle—that aided drainage but effectively limited racing to inside the crown. Both changes help allow for four rail positions, as opposed to the prior three paths, and more ability for jockeys and their mounts to race farther out in the course. "It's going to ride better because they took the crown out and being a little bit further out now, it'll be fair for everybody," Cannon said. "It won't be where you'll have to drop right (inside) on it. It's going to ride a lot fairer." Eventually, the changes are expected to mean more turf races. Of the roughly 700 races in Churchill's three annual meets, about a quarter of the contests are on turf. In 2019, 43 of 169 scheduled grass races were run on dirt because of weather or course conditions, Churchill has said previously. Initially, use of the course will be similar to prior Derby weeks, but Ziegler said that usage is expected to increase over the old norm as the meet goes on. With drainage, the new turf course includes a new state-of-the-art irrigation system—with the help of a water tank at Fourth Street and Central Avenue—with less pronounced banking in the turns. "It drains vertically a lot better than it used to as opposed to horizontally, down to the inside," Ziegler said. "That's why the crown was there in the past." The water tank "now allows us to water the entire turf course much more rapidly than we used to be able to," he said. Trainer assessments of the old course mirrored those of the riders. Trainer Chad Brown, who has conditioned the last three winners of what now is the Old Forester Turf Classic (G1T), said the new course looks good from a distance, although he had been pleased with the predecessor. "For the big race days through the years, Breeders' Cups and Derby weekends and such, I always thought Churchill had it in really good shape, and I didn't necessarily have any problems with it," Brown said. "But like I said, ultimately it did sound like it needed to be repaired at some point from all the feedback I was getting from jockeys and trainers right toward the end before they ripped it up." Churchill-based trainer Brad Cox said the old course while "really good" through the spring and then got worse later in the year. "We'll see how it goes," Cox said. "I think the true test will be this fall when we struggled with it in the past, but I'm hopeful it will work out." Trainer Kenny McPeek said his horses won a lot of races on the old course, but added, "I had a really good filly break her ankle over it a few years ago, and they started questioning the drainage then. And you don't typically have horses break their ankles or break down on a grass course. It was too boggy. But they don't think the drainage system was working." Asked what role safety played in the turf course revamp, Ziegler said, "The type of turf that used to be down was less conducive to warmer weather and created challenges the later in the year we got." Trainer Todd Pletcher, who will have a Churchill division this year, said he hasn't been at Churchill enough to know the old course's problems. "But they seem to have enough concern that they took some drastic steps and from what I've seen of this so far in just watching a few horses train over it the other day it seems to be in good shape," he said. "I guess we'll know more once we get a little more activity out there. But, you know, it seems like a proactive move to ensure more grass racing and safer conditions." It's also a testament to the importance of grass racing, Pletcher said, throughout the sport—noting that Gulfstream Park plans a revamp of its turf course after already installing a synthetic surface that accompanies its dirt track. "Turf racing's become more and more popular, and I think tracks are recognizing the need to be able to provide more opportunities," Pletcher said. Jockeys are hopeful the turf course will improve with time. "It'll get better as the meet goes on, I believe, with more growth and sunshine," Cannon said. "I think next year it's going to be even better," Leparoux said. "I think the more time we're going to give it, the better it's going to be."