Ahead of the showpiece Jeff Ruby Steaks card, Ken Snyder enjoys a typical Friday night at the northern Kentucky venue where the grandstand was demolished in 2020 as part of a $226m renovation project
There are crimes against humanity and then there is the demolition of the old Yankee Stadium. Do you pull down the Statue of Liberty for something more modern? Do you put the wrecking ball to the White House for better digs for the Prez because it’s old?
Admittedly, the old Turfway Park was hardly Yankee Stadium, but damn, at least the Yankees did build a replica of the ‘House that Ruth Built’. Turfway’s grandstand was demolished in 2020 to make way for a new historical racing gaming facility with an ‘Event Center’.
Think gigantic hotel or convention center meeting room. It doesn’t sound great but here’s a surprise: it works. The Event Center (‘Latonia Room’ anyone?) is mostly full on the Friday night I attend.
The old Turfway? There would be a fraction that would be there for $1 beer, a live band, and Mettwurst sausages on a bun to be eschewed by anyone with taste buds.
The biggest surprise is that the new Turfway isn’t functioning as a typical ‘racino’ so far as I can tell. In fact, most of the seats at the slots are empty.
On the other hand, the ‘HomeStretch’, the name for the half of the Event Center with menus and servers, is nearly full. Same for the other half of the room where you get your own food from a concession bar and drinks, both at the rear wall of the room. Mutuel clerks in a surprisingly short bank (maybe eight?) are close by.
What about the races? Well, they’re outside and unnoticed for live watching purposes – in favor of broadcasts on two fairly large screens in the glass front of the Event Center.
Few would be any wiser
It is hard to escape the idea that Turfway could broadcast race replays from last week and few would be any the wiser as virtually no one is looking at events outside the window.
I imagine Turfway’s owner Churchill Downs Inc. did their research to discover that if you put a broadcast screen in front of a live event, people will watch the screen. It’s what we do all day long with phones, so why should a night at the racetrack be any different?
However, this results in a definite lack of atmosphere, eliminating much of the building roar that so often provides the aural soundtrack for runs to the wire. Yeah, there’s some cheering here – but it’s followed by clapping. Yes, clapping?! Not as obnoxious as golf tournament clapping but just plain weird. Out. Of. Place.
Here’s something else that’s bizarre. Down the center of the dining tables is a wide alley completely empty of tables except for two at the window offering a view of the racetrack. One of those tables seating eight is completely empty and stays that way. So much for watching the races through the window; TV screens and closer proximity to the concessions and mutuel clerks are clearly a bigger draw.
There are eight guys at the other table, however, with opinions I don’t expect. They all preferred the new Turfway over the old. So much for sentiment, tradition, schmaltz. (Maybe they had tried the Mettwurst sausages?)
Another plus for the new Turfway, surprisingly, are the prices. The new Yankee Stadium, in the opinion of many, is designed primarily to cater for suite revenues and higher ticket prices – in short, a more monied crowd.
On the other hand, the new Turfway offers a viable entertainment alternative. From appearances, if the object is to attract new fans and bring back older fans, it is mission accomplished. Build it and they will come – and they will bring money.
Speaking of money, a beer at Turfway is $4, or $20 for a bucket of five. (Such a deal!) The menu for the HomeStretch has standard options – chicken wings at $14, double cheeseburger at $15 – to more adventurous eats like Wagyu meatballs ($15) and cheddar jalapeño grits.
Good food, reasonably priced
One of the eight guys at the window table actually watching live racing volunteers that the food is good and reckons it is reasonably priced at not much more than general prices elsewhere for fast food.
The ambience is that of a Vegas hotel. You enter a long concourse with the Event Center, Simulcast Room, and Casino in a line along one side. They call the concourse the ‘Gallery’. (Perhaps named by the same individual who came up with Event Center.)
At the end of the Gallery is a small, tasteful, and very comfortable ‘Owner’s Suite’ with a side door opening to the Event Center.
Mind you, I’m not entirely sure if ‘Owner’s Suite’ is a misnomer. I made myself nicely at home without getting the boot from the room attendant. A server from the adjacent you-know-where came in to give me a menu and ask if I wanted a drink.
At a guess, it must be suspected that legitimate owners can reserve tables in this prime location for showpiece cards but this Friday night is all right for squatters. It’s probably different for says like the upcoming Spiral Stakes card – sorry, Jeff Ruby Steaks, to employ the unfortunate homophone pun currently favored for commercial reasons.
Either way, the G3 contest remains Turfway’s premier points qualifier for the Kentucky Derby; subsequent Derby winner Animal Kingdom scored in 2011, while last year’s winner Two Phil’s was runner-up to Mage at Churchill Downs.
My visit suggests the Simulcast Room is the no-fun room. I imagine some kind of code dictated there be no celebration with a winning wager – or maybe it is just a bad night as all I hear are a couple of guys cursing under their breath.
The atmosphere here reminds me of a not-so-quiet library with 18 TV screens. Study, study, study. Muttered curse, muttered curse, muttered curse. Not one woman present, by the way, except for servers circulating with drinks.
Casino climax – or not
The Casino itself is anti-climactic. Blinding lights, sensory overload in general, but nobody screaming “I hit the jackpot!” The room is way short of even half-full.
Okay, what about the races, ostensibly the raison d’etre for this whole operation? Correction. Clearly horse racing is now only part of the reason for Turfway’s existence, offering only one revenue stream along with the casino, simulcast wagering, and concessions. That’s why the call it ‘Turfway Park Racing & Gaming’.
Yet this is actually a decent card with full fields on the Tapeta synthetic surface and mostly mid-level horses – thanks in part to casino revenue from Kentucky Downs a couple of hours down I-75 from Turfway. The purse for a maiden special weight race is a healthy $70,000.
Even staunch traditionalists would, I believe, concede that Turfway is at least comfortable without too much to complain about. Novices would come back, and that’s the whole idea.
No more cigar smoke blending with the smell of stale beer. The creature comforts of a decent restaurant. And no elbow rubbing with unsavory types betting the rent money.
Oh yeah, no Mettwurst sausage buns, either. But then again, you can’t have everything. Thank heavens for small mercies.
• Visit the Turfway Park website
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