Thursday Thoughts with Jason Beem Sept. 10, 2026

A good Thursday morning to you all! I write to you today from a Holiday Inn Express somewhere in Southern Indiana. On the road back to the West Coast and had a great first day of driving, with a little stop at the Red Mile to watch some harness races to break up the day. Not too much horse racing on my trip out west other than a stop at Grants Pass Downs next week that I always look for to you. 

This will be the last column for a few weeks as I’m taking my annual vacation after the season ends at Colonial Downs. So we’ll be back on September 28, both in podcast and in written form. I always try to take a true break from racing during this time just because I think it’s good to get away for a bit as our sport is year-round and all-encompassing sometimes. 

I wanted to write and reflect a little bit about the Colonial Downs season that ended on Labor Day. This was our longest season since reopening in 2019 and it’s so fun to feel the momentum that we’ve been building since that first year. If I remember correctly, we averaged about $1.1 million or so in handle per day for the 15 nights of racing during the first season. That’s right, that first season was all run in the evening under the lights!  I haven’t seen the final numbers yet for the 2026 season, but I know handle was up significantly over the last couple of years, averaging around $2.5 million per day over the 45-day meet. 

Progress is a good thing and I think many of us at Colonial believe growth can continue into the future. Even with many more days of racing, we were able to keep field size pretty strong and races competitive. Laurel Park not running during the summer certainly helps our cause, and I’m glad that these tracks have seemingly worked together to make a strong year-round circuit for the Mid-Atlantic region. 

Like many summers in Virginia, weather can be a problem spot, especially for a track that schedules a majority of races on turf. One thing that plagued us were high temperatures earlier in the meet, persistent during June and early July. Even last week, we had to deal with a 99-degree day and it’s September! Racing in the summer will always require some tweaks, but outside of the hot day last week, we had great weather the final half of the season. 

Personally, my favorite part of Colonial Downs is the turf racing and the challenge it is for calling races. Big fields and turf can make for some of the toughest racecalling and I think that makes it the most fun. All four of our graded stakes races this season had winning margins of a half-length or less. They were all thrilling and exciting races which turf racing lends itself to. Now, it’s not as challenging as Kentucky Downs and what Michael Wrona does there is unbelievable, but Colonial is no picnic to call and for that reason alone it’s a very rewarding place to work. Also, we have a great staff of people who work there and really do care about horse racing. I think a lot of people think of a Churchill Downs-owned track as a big corporate track, but our team is not that big and they do a lot of great work to try and grow the product. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely, and that’s what we’ll be trying for in 2027.  I hope you’ll join in and see what’s happening in Virginia racing, because it’s growing and it’s exciting. 

See you all in a few weeks!