Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem for Sept. 15, 2025

Jason discusses the conclusion of the Colonial Downs meet and the season as a whole. 

A good Monday morning to you all! Hope everyone’s weekend went well and that you were able to find some winners. 

It seemed that Churchill’s big Saturday for the most part was formful, and of course Notable Speech was a very obvious winner at Woodbine in the Mile (G1) over there. I was a big fan of Argos in the Summer S. (G1) after his effort in the Soaring Free S. last time out, so I was glad to see him get up and score under Flavien Prat. 

Here in Virginia, we closed out our annual summer season at Colonial Downs with a nice 10-race card on Saturday. We ran 41 days this summer, which was about 50% more than we’d run the last couple of years. It was the first time since I’d been here that we’ve run four days a week, and over all I think everything went pretty well. 

Field size stayed very good, and obviously Laurel not running against us for most of the summer played a big part in that. I hope that the mid-Atlantic circuit is able to find a sweet spot for all tracks to co-exist because there is a lot of racing in a small geographic area. And it’s so important for everyone to have good cards with big fields, as much as possible. 

I mentioned on my show today that this summer I felt the most “at home” in Virginia as I had in any summer previously. I think part of that is just after seven summers up here, I know the area so much more. 

Colonial Downs is interesting because it’s very much in a rural setting and equidistant from Williamsburg and Richmond. I know a lot of people who work there that stay in Williamsburg, and many of us stay in and around Richmond. I’ve always stayed in Richmond as I prefer a little bigger-city vibe, and I think Richmond has a very cool feel to it and lots of fun places to eat and visit. 

The Tampa area is my home now, but I’ve grown to feel very comfortable here. And believe me that’s not always been the case. I remember going to Shreveport for the first time to work at Louisiana Downs, and I felt out of sorts right from the first day I arrived. So I’m glad that Richmond is feeling more and more comfortable with each passing year. 

Colonial really does have the potential to grow into something great in the racing landscape. The turf course is one of the best in the country, and the field size is very competitive each racing day. It’s sometimes hard for tracks to break through into the “big time,” but with the big races we’ve added and hopefully some more changes and improvements in the coming years, I think it’s very possible that we can grow into a very solid summertime track as far as total handle and prominence. But we shall see!  

Over all, it’s just very cool to get to be a little part of a track that had shuttered back in 2013, was closed for six years, and is now averaging well over $2 million in betting handle, and growing each year with days and prominence. We’re by no means a big team at the track, and it takes everyone working together to make things go. Anyways, just feeling happy and proud of the solid meet we just put together. 

Thank you so much for everyone who played the races there this summer. We hope to be back bigger and better in 2026. For me, it’s vacation time. I’ll be back to writing and doing the podcast in two weeks. I’m going to head up to Canada and New England for some vacation time before heading back to Florida. Tampa Bay Downs opens up in just two months!