Monday Morning Message with Jason Beem for Dec. 1, 2025

Jason discusses the turning of the calendar to December and some memories of winter racing.  

A good Monday morning to you all! Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend, whether at home or at the races.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at some friends’ house. When I was younger, I always thought turkey and the traditional Thanksgiving fixings weren’t that great, but the older I get, the more I like them. And reheated turkey and mashed potatoes made a great between-race lunch at Tampa Bay Downs on Friday. 

Racing wound down for the year at Del Mar and Churchill this weekend as we kind of fully make the shift to wintertime racing. Gulfstream’s big meet has now started, Tampa and Fair Grounds are underway, and soon Woodbine will turn off the lights until next spring. 

Living down here in Florida, wintertime racing is strange because it’s just not very winter-like. When I was younger, we’d go to Portland Meadows or Yakima Meadows in the wintertime and wager on cheap horses with just a smattering of a crowd in the building. You’d see the breath from the horses and riders as they were out in the post parade, and more often than not, the track was sloppy. Winter racing is just different. It’s tough. 

The backside at Portland Meadows on a January day was cold, wet, and often quiet by backside standards. You wouldn’t see the gatherings of trainers and agents up on the stand like you would in the fall or the spring. Everyone just did their work and got to a warm place as soon as possible. Once we switched to weekday racing there, the quiet got even more dramatic. On a cold weekend day, you’d still get a fair bit of spillover outside onto the apron to watch a race. But on a cold Tuesday, there’d maybe be four people along with the track photographer out front. 

Some of my favorite memories from cold, winter racing are those few minutes before the last race of the day. The sun was low, the sky was gray, and it was just so remarkably quiet. You wouldn’t know you were within the city limits of the 28th biggest city in the United States. It was almost an eerie quiet as the horses would warm up on the far side of the track, while I sat there in the booth rehearsing their names. 

Winter racing down here in Florida has great crowds, weather, and it honestly just feels like spring all but a couple of days a year. It’s probably how most prefer to “do” winter racing. But it doesn’t feel like winter racing to me. There is a strange specialness to those cold racing days in the winter. It makes the spring feel so much more special when it finally arrives, and you cannot wear a jacket to the track. 

Of course, it also means more cancellations. As the years have gone by, it seems more and more tracks are canceling due to weather than they used to. I suppose it’s good to be more cautious, but it also mounts frustration and costs for horsemen and bettors who spent time preparing for the card. But it’s just part of the deal with wintertime racing. 

Turfway will get underway this week, and we’ll talk about it plenty on my podcast. It’s become one of the favorite stops for many players during the winter months. It has a really unique spot on the winter racing circuit, thanks to its synthetic surface, big fields, and interesting challenges. 

Would love to hear from folks which winter tracks they like most and why. 

Have a great start to your December!