By Carter Wilkie
Overlooked in the focus on Churchill Downs Inc.'s (CDI) announcement with the New York Racing Association (NYRA) of their Thoroughbred Championship Series for 3 year-olds was a statement made by CDI CEO Bill Carstanjen during the company's July 30 conference call with investors:
“We will retain our Fair Grounds-related properties in Louisiana because of their long-term importance to the horse racing industry. Fair Grounds Race Course is home to the Louisiana Derby, which is a premier Road to the Kentucky Derby race. Fair Grounds also offers one of the very few wintertime turf courses in the eastern half of the U.S. and plays a key strategic role in the migration of racehorses in the colder months.”
Carstanjen made the commitment to keep Fair Grounds in CDI's portfolio of racetracks when he announced the company would explore the sale of its track and casino at Presque Isle Downs, in Erie, Pennsylvania, its harness track and casino at Ocean Downs in Maryland, and seven other casino properties in Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Mississippi and New York.
In May of last year, CDI told the Louisiana Racing Commission that CDI would refuse to hold its 2025-2026 meet at the track if the state failed to help CDI replace revenue lost after Louisiana's highest court declared historical horse racing machines there unconstitutional without voter approval.
One month later, CDI said it had reached an agreement with Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and horsemen to continue operations at Fair Grounds after local elected officials threatened to designate Fair Grounds a state historic site.
A historic designation would have prohibited the demolition or alteration of Fair Grounds without local government approval, making the real estate less attractive and valuable to potential buyers and developers if CDI decided to sell it.
Racing was first held there in 1838, and the site also hosts the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the second largest annual party in New Orleans after Mardi Gras. The 145-acre property sits between the city's Gentilly and Esplanade Ridge neighborhoods, near City Park. Shaded by mature Live Oak trees, Esplanade Ridge was long known as “Millionaire's Row” for the city's 19th-century mixed-race Creole upper class and their grand mansions.
Louisiana officials said they wanted to save Fair Grounds from the fate of suburban Chicago's now-demolished Arlington Park, which CDI closed in 2021 and then sold to the Chicago Bears as a potential site for an NFL stadium.
The loss of Fair Grounds would have doomed Louisiana as one of the top five Thoroughbred breeding grounds in the U.S., shrinking the state's Thoroughbred foal crop and footprint even further from the 50% decline it has experienced over the last decade.
At the same time, Fair Grounds, Gulfstream Park and Tampa Bay Downs are the only winter-operating tracks in the warmest climate zones east of the Mississippi River. South Florida's long-term future as a destination for winter racing remains unresolved.
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