Turfway Park opens its holiday meet on Wednesday, December 2, the first of 18 cards run Wednesdays through Sundays until December 30, with first post at 5:55 p.m. Eastern, according to the meet's condition book. The track in Florence, Kentucky, is dark on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and December 27. Thoroughbred Daily News (TDN) reported on November 2 that the 2027 winter/spring meet follows from January 1 to March 27, racing Wednesday to Saturday, and that the two meets carry 28 stakes worth $5.477 million, the richest being the $777,000 Grade 3 Jeff Ruby Steaks on March 20, 2027.
December holds eight of those stakes, worth $1.5 million. Four $250,000 races make up what TDN calls the third Synthetic Championships on December 12: the Holiday Cheer at six furlongs and the Prairie Bayou at a mile for 3-year-olds and up, plus the six-furlong Holiday Inaugural and the one-mile My Charmer for fillies and mares. The $125,000 Boone County, at a mile and a quarter, opens the stakes calendar on December 5. The Florence sends fillies and mares over the same trip for the same purse on December 19, and two more $125,000 races for 3-year-olds, the Last Hurrah and Her Last Hurrah, end the December stakes on the 26th.
Synthetic Championships, Saturday, December 12, 2026
| Stakes | For | Distance | Purse |
|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday Cheer | 3-year-olds and up | 6 furlongs | $250,000 |
| Holiday Inaugural (Listed) | Fillies & mares, 3 and up | 6 furlongs | $250,000 |
| My Charmer | Fillies & mares, 3 and up | 1 mile | $250,000 |
| Prairie Bayou (Listed) | 3-year-olds and up | 1 mile | $250,000 |
Turfway has three Kentucky Derby preps after New Year's Day, TDN reported, and one of them is new to the Road to the Kentucky Derby for 2027: the $125,000 Leonnatus Stakes at a mile on January 16, with 10 points to the winner down to 1 for fifth. The John Battaglia Memorial on February 20 is the last local prep for the Jeff Ruby, whose winner earns 100 points and a Derby place, TDN said. TDN's list of 20 winter/spring stakes worth $3.977 million also holds two Kentucky Oaks preps, the Cincinnati Trophy the night before the Battaglia and the $300,000 Bourbonette Oaks, a Jeff Ruby day co-feature with the Grade 3 TwinSpires Kentucky Cup Classic.
Jeff Ruby day 2026: the six stakes on March 21, 2026
| Stakes | For | Distance | Purse |
|---|---|---|---|
| Latonia | Fillies & mares, 4 and up | 1 1/16 miles | $248,000 |
| Rushaway | 3-year-olds | 1 1/16 miles | $245,000 |
| Animal Kingdom | 3-year-olds | 6 furlongs | $248,000 |
| TwinSpires Kentucky Cup Classic (G3) | 4-year-olds and up | 1 1/8 miles | $295,000 |
| Bourbonette Oaks | 3-year-old fillies | 1 1/16 miles | $300,000 |
| Jeff Ruby Steaks (G3) | 3-year-olds | 1 1/8 miles | $777,000 |
Turf Archive's results for last season, the 2026 winter/spring meet, run from February 25 to March 28, the last day Turfway raced; the database starts on February 22, so the meet's earlier weeks and last year's holiday meet are not in it. The 20 cards in that span held 202 races, and in the 197 with a complete chart 1,707 horses started, an average of 8.66 a race. None of the other 19 North American tracks with results for those dates averaged more starters, and over March alone Turfway still led all of them at 8.45. Tampa Bay Downs was next at 8.25 and Oaklawn Park third at 8.11.
Seventy-one of those 197 races drew 10 or more starters, and 21 went to post with 12. Twelve races had five or fewer starters. Maiden special weights averaged 8.92 starters and maiden claimers 8.90, against 8.63 in open claiming races. The 10 stakes had the smallest fields at 7.80 a race, but the 2026 Jeff Ruby drew 12.
Turfway's median $2 win payoff over the period was $8.90, against $8.40 at Oaklawn and $7.00 at Tampa Bay. Its median $2 exacta paid $51.40, its median 50-cent trifecta $78.31 and its median 10-cent superfecta $83.91. Per dollar bet, all three led the 18 tracks that ran at least eight cards. The database holds the payoffs but not each track's takeout, so it cannot say how much of the gap in exotic payoffs comes from Turfway's larger fields.
Field size and median payoffs, February 25 to March 28, 2026
| Track | Cards | Starters | 10+ fields | $2 win | $2 exacta | 50¢ tri | 10¢ super |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turfway Park | 20 | 8.66 | 36% | $8.90 | $51.40 | $78.31 | $83.91 |
| Tampa Bay Downs | 19 | 8.25 | 30% | $7.00 | $36.20 | $55.35 | $43.61 |
| Oaklawn Park | 19 | 8.11 | 21% | $8.40 | $37.60 | $46.30 | $39.59 |
| Fonner Park | 13 | 7.93 | 21% | $7.90 | $38.00 | $38.40 | $38.88 |
| Fair Grounds | 18 | 7.90 | 16% | $7.40 | $40.00 | $46.42 | $40.39 |
| Gulfstream Park | 19 | 7.62 | 16% | $8.20 | $43.00 | $45.20 | $35.67 |
| Turf Paradise | 21 | 7.20 | 6% | $6.00 | $24.10 | $28.80 | $17.43 |
| Sunland Park | 8 | 7.12 | 5% | $8.00 | $29.80 | $29.85 | $18.22 |
| Sam Houston | 14 | 7.07 | 4% | $7.30 | $27.80 | $28.82 | $22.78 |
| Parx Racing | 14 | 6.91 | 9% | $6.40 | $31.40 | $30.32 | $26.10 |
| Santa Anita | 14 | 6.87 | 11% | $7.20 | $30.50 | $32.25 | $28.44 |
| Will Rogers Downs | 9 | 6.83 | 6% | $5.70 | $28.80 | $32.35 | $29.96 |
| Mahoning Valley | 21 | 6.31 | 2% | $6.40 | $29.40 | $24.33 | $15.75 |
| Charles Town | 20 | 6.28 | 1% | $7.00 | $27.70 | $22.57 | $13.84 |
| Aqueduct | 18 | 6.25 | 3% | $6.23 | $25.79 | $22.59 | $11.69 |
| Penn National | 11 | 5.99 | 0% | $6.60 | $23.80 | $24.85 | $18.99 |
| Laurel Park | 13 | 5.72 | 1% | $6.80 | $24.80 | $17.75 | $11.00 |
| Los Alamitos Quarter Horse | 8 | 5.27 | 0% | $4.40 | $13.20 | $10.80 | $6.45 |
The two largest payoffs on the 20 cards were both 20-cent Pick 6 Jackpot hits: $181,474.16 on March 27, after the jackpot's carryover from earlier cards had reached $123,202 with the March 26 card, and $138,752.13 on February 26. The next largest was the 50-cent Pick 5 on races 1 through 5 on March 18, at $116,027.51 from a pool of $182,031. Lady Virago won the opener of that sequence at $38.10, and Non Fungible took the third at $99.54, the biggest win payoff of the 202 races.
Walter Rodriguez rode 21 Turfway winners between February 25 and March 28, five more than Luan Machado, with Fernando De La Cruz third on 15. Joe Sharp led trainers with 10 wins. Michael Maker had nine, two of them in stakes on the March 21, 2026 card: Willy D's took the Kentucky Cup Classic and Lorelei Lee the Bourbonette Oaks. The 2026 Jeff Ruby, on that same card, went to Fulleffort for Brad Cox and Irad Ortiz Jr. Fulleffort paid $5.82.
For December, the condition book sets overnight purses from $17,900 for $5,000 maiden claimers to $106,000 for allowance races, with maiden special weights at $100,000. Each figure includes Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund money that only registered Kentucky-sired Kentucky-breds can earn: of a $100,000 maiden purse, $53,000 is fund money and $47,000 is open to every starter.