Churchill Downs is in Louisville, Kentucky. We handicap Thoroughbred racing only. This guide does not share statistics yet; we will add numbers from our race chart database once we have enough Churchill Downs charts for them to mean something.
The Track Itself
Churchill Downs is the home of the Kentucky Derby and the Kentucky Oaks, and it runs several meets a year: a spring meet built around Derby week, a September meet, and a fall meet that closes out the Kentucky season. Racing runs on a one-mile dirt main track and a turf course inside it.
Derby Week Is Not a Normal Week
The weeks around the Derby bring the biggest fields and the most shippers of the year, and those cards play differently from an ordinary weekday. Horses arrive from Florida, Arkansas, New York and California, and their form has to be translated across circuits rather than read at face value.
Dirt and Turf Ask Different Questions
Treat the dirt and turf races as two different puzzles. Grass form from Keeneland and other Kentucky tracks usually carries over better than dirt speed from smaller circuits.
The Takeaway
At Churchill, the class and quality of the field change a lot from meet to meet. Start with where each horse has been racing, then ask whether that form holds up against this field.