Visitors to the 143rd running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, Kentucky, on Saturday will be met with a revamped feel and a smattering of new amenities and capital improvements designed to enhance their dining and wagering experiences.
“We are very excited for 143rd edition of the ‘Run for the Roses.’ The big change you will see this year is the $16 million renovation project of the clubhouse,” said Bill Carstanjen, chief executive officer of Churchill Downs, on a recent earnings call. “We have focused on improving on everything we do and hope our customers appreciate and feel the difference.”
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Posted by Churchill Downs on Wednesday, April 5, 2017
“These improved amenities and features will be apparent to everyone who enters the clubhouse, but will be especially appreciated by the nearly 18,000 guests who utilize the restrooms, food and beverage offerings and wagering windows in this section of our facility,” he continued.
The new and improved clubhouse will feature 95,000 square feet of renovated space, 220 flat-screen televisions, 180 new pari-mutuel wagering windows and 133 restroom stalls.
A host of new food and beverage offerings includes several bars named after prior Derby winners, such as Behave Yourself, Spend a Buck, Regret and I’ll Have Another.
While Churchill Downs has had strong success attracting bettors to its TwinSpires online wagering platform, the company’s heart and soul remains welcoming patrons to its Kentucky Derby – which Carstanjen called the “crown jewel” of the company.
“While we have benefited over a long period of time from the trend of horseplayers moving their play online from traditional brick-and-mortar outlets, we market expensively around the Kentucky Derby, the Triple Crown season, and the Breeder’s Cup, since that is when the sport acquires new fans,” said Bill Carstanjen, chief executive officer on a recent earnings call.
“Our goal is to surprise our customers and exceed their expectations. I’m confident we will achieve that this year,” he added.
In all Churchill Downs has spent around $125 million on capital improvements at its namesake racetrack over the past seven years.
Saturday’s Derby was supposed to have an East Asian flavor through the featuring of the race’s first-ever Japanese participant. That plan fell short, however, for logistical reasons.
“Unfortunately, we will have to wait until next year for a Japanese runner, as none of the three qualifiers this year are able to make the trip,” said Carstanjen.
As a vehicle for tapping into Japan’s $28 billion horse racing market, Churchill launched its inaugural Japan Road to the Kentucky Derby in which a Japanese horse could earn one of the 20 starting spots in the race. The plan was then to simulcast the race in Japan so that fans in that country could watch their homegrown horse compete in the world’s biggest race.
“Japan has typically been a closed country so they didn’t allow simulcasting of any horseracing outside of Japan for Japanese customer to wager on. That opened up in the late spring of last year. So it’s a great opportunity for us to evaluate,” said Bill Mudd, Churchill’s chief operating officer.
Not wasting any time, Carstanjen’s team is busy making preparations for 2018 event. In the works is a $37 million project to build a new tower that will add 77,000 in square footage, 1,800 new seats and as many as 36 new luxury suites on the north side of the racetrack.
“Every year, we want to be able to demonstrate to our customers that we are making the event bigger, better and more fun for everyone,” said Carstanjen.
