Kentucky Downs

Race Tracks > Kentucky Downs

Kentucky Downs Track Facts

  • Address: 5629 Nashville Rd, Franklin, KY 42134
  • Phone: (270) 586-7778
  • Website: www.themintgaming.com
  • Track (Turf): 1 mile 550 yards
  • Stretch length:  1,320 feet
  • Surface Composition: Turf

Opened in 1990 as the Dueling Grounds Race Course, Kentucky Downs is a unique, European-style race track that regularly hosts graded stakes events each year.

Bet Live Racing at Kentucky Downs here!

Notable Stakes and Listed Racing Events at Kentucky Downs

  • Calumet Turf Cup (G2) | 3-year-olds & up going 1-1/2 mi.
  • Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint Stakes (G3) | 3-year-olds & up going 6 furlongs
  • Franklin-Simpson Stakes (G3) | 3-year-olds going 6 & ½ furlongs
  • Kentucky Downs Ladies Sprint Stakes (G3) | Fillies and Mares, 3-year-olds & up going 6 & ½ furlongs
  • Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf Stakes (G3) | Fillies and Mares, 3-year-olds & up going 1 mi.
  • Mint Million (G3) | 3-year-olds & up going 1 mi.
  • Dueling Grounds Derby | 3-year-olds going 1-1-5/16 mi.
  • More than Ready Mile| 3-year-olds & up going 1 mi.

Kentucky Downs Racing and Track History

Located near the Kentucky – Tennessee border on Interstate 65 and 35 miles north of Nashville, Kentucky Downs is a year round entertainment center that offers live racing in September, simulcasting seven days a week, pari-mutuel wagering on historical horse races, charitable gaming, dining and other events. Horses compete on the unique 1 5/16-mile European style turf course, which features subtle elevation changes, a sweeping turn into the stretch run and a quarter-mile run from the end of the final turn to the finish line.
 

The Turf Cup is the main event of the Kentucky Cup Turf Festival, which kicks off the track’s brief racing session in September. This race was first held as the Sam Houston Stakes in 1991; Sam Houston, then a state representative and the former governor of Tennessee, fought and won a duel on these grounds in 1832 before moving south and leading the Texas Revolution.

Track Info

With the only European-style racetrack in America, Kentucky Downs features a non-oval shaped course with an early sharp-left turn into the back stretch. In the last 7 furlongs, the course turns right – a feature that only one other track (Santa Anita Park) in the US has.