Thursday Thoughts with Jason Beem for April 10, 2025

A good Thursday morning to you all! Such a strange week with Keeneland seemingly running every day right now and wanted to write a little bit and reflect on the Ashland (G1) Monday and Blue Grass (G1) Tuesday cards at Keeneland. First of all for me, they were great because I’m not announcing those days so I had time to watch all of the races on both cards. I understand that’s a luxury not everyone has as most people still work Monday-through-Friday jobs. It was an interesting study if anything. 

I saw some conversation on my Twitter feed this past week about whether or not maybe moving the occasional big day around to a week day or just days other than Saturday is a good move. I suppose the first question is whether or not it’s a good move for everyone. I mean, what was a great move for me as a viewer surely wasn’t a great one for Keeneland as far as business as handle went from about $30 million from last year's Blue Grass on a Saturday to around $20 million for this Tuesday card. That was certainly expected and there’s some obvious and maybe less obvious reasons why. 

The obvious reasons are that it just wasn’t a Saturday. Saturday is always king of the week for handle and is traditionally when most big, national races are run. It stands to reason there’s just more money out there in play, especially for a track like Keeneland which during this season is the top dog. I did notice the handle was down at the other normal Tuesday tracks, so all the attention was going to the big card. 

Aside from the obvious reasons, I think the more subtle reasons are just the regimented nature of a lot of players. Many horseplayers just play Saturdays or they know Keeneland runs Saturday. It’s naive to think that everyone is as plugged into the day-to-day goings on in racing as many of us are. I’ve seen a lot of players over the years who just show up Saturday morning at the track or OTB and play their regular spots. Whenever a track changes days or seasons, it tends to usually take a while for the handle to get going. Of course there’s the major tracks like Keeneland or Saratoga where most people know they’re coming, but for many middle-size and smaller tracks, I think people really do kind of stumble into them and eventually get into the routine of them. We used to always see this at Portland Meadows. Handle would always kind of snowball there and peak later in the meet. 

Big days on weekdays aren't totally new. Fort Erie does it with the Prince of Wales. Colonial did it for a few years with the Virginia Derby and while the Malibu (G1) at Santa Anita is often run on a weekday, it’s also on kind of a holiday of sorts and doesn’t count. I’m personally all for mixing up big card days once in a while, but most tracks aren’t in a position where they want to risk the potential handle or revenue loss just to spice up your or my Monday.  

This week, we even have the Maker’s Mark Mile (G1) on a big Friday program at Keeneland. Should be a fun race and spice up the weekday card. So we got that going for us.

Everyone enjoy the weekend, traditional or not!