Support your local First Responders with a day at Colonial Downs Racetrack on Sunday, August 30! Join us for live racing, a petting zoo and many other events.
PLUS, all First Responders receive FREE Jockey Club tickets for them plus up to 3 guests!
Support your local teachers with a day at Colonial Downs Racetrack on Sunday, August 2! Bring supplies as a donation and receive FREE grandstand reserve seats for the day.
PLUS, all teachers receive FREE Jockey Club tickets for them plus up to 3 guests!
Don’t miss the 3rd annual Wiener Dog Racing at Colonial Downs in New Kent. Open to all ages! General admission tickets are just $5. Kids 5 & under are free. Reserved seating on sale now!
Don’t miss the inaugural Corgi Races at Colonial Downs in New Kent. Open to all ages! General admission tickets are just $5. Kids 5 & under are free. Reserved seating on sale now!
EVENT LOCATION:
10515 Colonial Downs Parkway
New Kent, VA 23124
June 25 through September 7
Post time 12:30PM
PREMIUM DAYS
$5 Premium GA Day
June 27: Corgi Race Day
Aug. 1: Festival of Racing
Aug. 15: Wiener Dog Race Day
FAMILY FUN DAYS
June 25: Opening Day
July 19: Military Appreciation Day
July 25: PDJF Day
Aug. 2: Teacher Appreciation Day
Aug. 16: Princess/Tractor Day
Aug. 22: Claiming Crown Preview Day
Aug. 30: First Responder Day
Sept. 7: Labor Day/College Day Old Dominion Derby
MORE EVENTS TO COME!
*All post times subject to change. Must be 18 or older to wager.
Schedule includes three-day Virginia Derby meet in March.
NEW KENT, Va. (December 3, 2024) – Racing dates for an expanded 2025 season at Colonial Downs were approved today by the Virginia Racing Commission. The 44-day schedule starts with a special three-day Virginia Derby meet from March 13 through March 15 followed by the traditional summer meet from July 9 through September 13.
The $500,000 Virginia Derby, a points race on the Road to the Kentucky Derby, will transition to the dirt and be held on March 15, anchoring a new three-day spring meet which will also include the $250,000 Virginia Oaks, a Kentucky Oaks points race. The winning horse in each race will receive 50 points to the Grade 1 Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve or the Grade 1 Longines Kentucky Oaks, respectively. The second- through fifth-place finishers will earn 25-15-10-5 points on a sliding scale.
Post times for racing during the three-day March meet will be at 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 13 and Friday, March 14. The Virginia Derby day card on Saturday, March 15 will kick off at Noon.
Additional reserved indoor and outdoor seating will be available for Virginia Derby Day on March 15. Ticket options for the Virginia Derby will be announced and go on sale to the public in the coming weeks, including a limited number of general admission tickets.
The summer schedule expands to 41 days for 2025 with racing four days per week, Wednesday through Saturday. Post time will be 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday with twilight racing offered every Friday with a 4 p.m. post time. Racing also will be offered on Labor Day, Monday, September 1.
The Colonial Downs Festival of Racing and its three graded stakes races is slated for Saturday, August 9 and will have a special Noon post time. Racing also will start at Noon on Saturday, September 6 for a stakes-laden card.
“We’re excited to bring Kentucky Derby and Kentucky Oaks qualifying races to Virginia for the first time in 2025,” Senior Director of Operations Frank Hopf said. “We look forward to an outstanding 2025 season with participation from horsemen not only from Virginia but also from throughout the Mid-Atlantic as we expand our summer dates.”
The entire stakes schedule for the 2025 season will be made available in the coming weeks. The 2024 season offered approximately $650,000 in purses per day and are expected to be similar in 2025.
(NEW KENT, Va. 7/20/2023) A pair of $150,000 Open Turf Sprint Stakes with respective 12- and 10-horse fields will highlight Colonial Downs’ second week of racing on the Saturday July 22 card. The Andy Guest Stakes will feature fillies and mares 3-years-old and up while the Van Clief will showcase older males. Each will be contested at 5½furlongs and will be run consecutively as races five and six, kicking off the first two legs of the fifty-cent Late Pick-5 which has a low 12% takeout rate.
M and W Stables’ Train to Artemus is early 2-1 favorite in the Andy Guest Stakes for trainer Kelly Breen. The 5-year-old Tapizar mare is 7-for-10 on turf and has won three of the last five stakes she has competed in. She prevailed most recently in the Goodwood at Monmouth and Pimlico’s The Very One, and back on February 18, she captured the Lightning City Stakes at Tampa. Emisael Jaramillo will ride.
DARRS Inc.’s Rambert will look to take a step forward Saturday after two second-place stakes finishes at the New Kent racetrack, the 2022 Camptown and 2021 Keswick Stakes. The 4-year-old Declaration of War filly broke her maiden at Colonial last summer and is looking to extend a current two-race win streak from turf scores at Meadowlands and Delaware Park. Trained by Michael Stidham and ridden by Mychel Sanchez, the filly is owned by Colonial’s all-time leader in that category, David Ross.
Larry Johnson’s Can’t Buy Love will get attention courtesy of three recent stakes placed outings. The 5-year-old Twirling Candy mare was runner-up to Train to Artemus in the Goodwood and had respectable thirds in the Floral Park at Aqueduct and Sensible Lady Turf Dash Stakes at Pimlico. With $292,311 in earnings, the Michael Trombetta trainee will be ridden by Horacio Karamanos.
One race later, Elizabeth Merryman’s consistent 4-year-old gelding Witty is the 5-2 morning line favorite in the Van Clief. The son of Great Notion has five wins and five runner-up finishes from 14 career starts, good for earnings of $357,460. The McLane Hendriks trainee was second July 1 in the Laurel Dash and in his other most recent stakes outing, took a respectable fifth in the Page McKenney Handicap at Parx. Carol Cedeno will ride Witty from post three.
George Sharp’s Front Run the Fed, winner of the 2022 Van Clief, returns to defend his title and faces a deep field. The 7-year-old Fed Biz horse won by a head last year and since then, has competed in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Mile and in the Jaipur Stakes at Belmont. The Caio Caramori trainee, with a bankroll of $639,182, also took a respectable fourth last fall in the Grade 2 Turf Sprint at Kentucky Downs. David Cabrera will ride Saturday.
A trio of competitors, each with bankrolls of over $650,000, will try to stop the defending champ. Calumet Farm’s Gear Jockey, second early pick at 4-1, is just $3,029 shy of breaking the $1 million mark in earnings. The 6-year-old Twirling Candy horse has Grade 1 experience with a sixth in the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint and a tenth in last year’s Jaipur. The Rusty Arnold trainee, who has not competed since November, will have Feargal Lynch in the irons.
Golden Kernel Racing Stable’s Yes I Am Free has 12 career victories including back-to-back winning efforts in the Grade 3 Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint. Trainer Laura Cazares’s 7-year-old Uncaptured gelding has been rolling nicely in 2023, finishing either first or second in all five outings. Two of those were close seconds — by a neck in the Mighty Beau Stakes at Ellis Park and by a half-length in the Silks Run Stakes at Gulfstream. Emisael Jaramillo has the mount.
William Branch’s 7-year-old Artie Schiller gelding Carotari brings a wealth of turf experience and success into the Van Clief. Trainer Brian Lynch’s charge has 16 in-the-money scores from 22 grass starts and earnings of $524,303. Carotari has faced Yes I Am Free twice recently, in the Silks Run and the Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint, and finished one spot behind Cazares’s gelding each time. Colby Hernandez will ride from post 9.
About Colonial Downs
Colonial Downs Racetrack, in New Kent, Virginia, hosts live thoroughbred racing on two nationally renowned surfaces – the Secretariat Turf Course, the widest turf course in North America at 180 feet wide and on a 1 1/4-mile dirt track, second in length to only the world-famous Belmont Park.
The Colonial Downs Group, which is owned by Churchill Downs Incorporated (NASDAQ Global Select Market: CHDN), also operates Rosie’s Gaming Emporiums® in Richmond, Hampton, New Kent, Vinton, and Dumfries which offer innovative historic horseracing (HHR) gaming technology and full card simulcasting as well as Rosie’s Game Room in Collinsville, which features a limited selection of some of their best HHR titles plus full card simulcasting. The 2023 live racing season, which consists of 27 days from July 13 through September 9, is highlighted by the Grade 1 Arlington Million, Grade 1 Beverly D. and Grade 2 Secretariat Stakes on August 12 and the Grade 3 New Kent County Virginia Derby on September 9. The Beverly D. is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge “Win & You’re In” race.
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