A series of records were broken during the spring meet at Keeneland Race Course. The Lexington facility set a record for largest single day attendance, and for largest amount ever wagered on a single race. "We’ve had a wonderful meeting attendance-wise. We have such great enthusiasm from our fans and we’ve had such wonderful community support that we’ve actually had record attendance,” said Amy Gregory, a spokeswoman for Keeneland.
Over 40,000 people visited the Lexington facility on April 14th for the Bluegrass Stakes. In total, Gregory says 269,292 people were in the stands during the 15 day meet.
“We’ve actually been very blessed with some terrific weather this spring. And, we’ve had just some fantastic racing, the support of our horsemen has been wonderful,” said Gregory.
Keeneland also broke its record for biggest single race wagering. Over $1,925,900 was bet on the Bluegrass Stakes. Also, that day $21,647,378 were bet on all races at Keeneland, setting another record.
“Last spring, I don’t know if you remember, but we were fighting a lot of rain, a record rainfall here in central Kentucky. This spring it’s seems like the warm weather we’ve had through the winter has really carried forward. We’ve had some beautiful, sunny days and some warm temperatures and we’ve really seen the attendance increase again,” said Gregory.
Gregory adds there was no fatal injury among horses running on Keeneland’s artificial surface for six straight spring meets. Racing ended there on Friday.
