NYRA, Woodbine Team to Improve Winter Racing

The winter of the New York Racing Association's discontent is nearly at an end. Finally. Though spring officially arrived last week, NYRA's abysmal 2026 winter meet at soon-to-close Aqueduct Racetrack has three dates left, beginning with the March 27 card, which attracted 60 horses for just eight races before scratches. At the end of the March 29 card, pushed into the past will be a winter weighed down by two pulverizing snow storms and an unusually high total of more than 40 inches of snowfall, stretches of bitter cold, 10 cancellations with eight sparsely filled replacement cards, and a downward trending average field size of just 6.5 starters per race. "It's been a challenging and disappointing winter for NYRA and our racing participants and fans," said Andrew Offerman, NYRA's senior vice president of racing and operations. "It's probably been the most challenging winter from a weather perspective in the last 10 or 12 years. There were serious interruptions to racing and training in January and February." The brutal winter has even led to a two-week delay in the start of grass racing at the Big A until April 16. "The cancellations didn't help. The condition of the track didn't help. It was a tough winter," said Tina Bond, president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. Though the weather has allowed a switch from parkas to jackets, field size at Aqueduct figures to remain an issue for about a month as many of New York's most prominent stables will have strings at Keeneland in April. But looking ahead, things will be much different next winter. By then, Aqueduct will be closed and winter racing will take place at the new, modernized Belmont Park on an all-weather, 1-mile, innermost Tapeta surface that will give the winter months a totally different look. "The pivot to Tapeta is an effort to change the direction where winter racing is heading. We need to bolster the number of race-ready horses and find ways to keep horses who may need turf racing rather than having them turned out. That's our focus: to reimagine what winter racing looks like and break ourselves out from what has been a challenging and disappointing winter," Offerman said. To that end, NYRA has teamed with Woodbine to create a novel series of stakes for 2-year-olds this year and 3-year-olds in 2027 that will be open only to horses bred in New York and Canada. Called the Empire Trillium Series, it features 14 stakes at the two tracks with a combined value of $3.2 million that will span late December through July. The first eight stakes will be on the all-weather track at Belmont from late December through February and the final six are slated for Woodbine from April through July on Tapeta and turf for 3-year-olds and up. "We were looking at mutually beneficial ways to increase field size and their winter meet coincides with the end of our meet. So for us, it was a great opportunity to find a restricted stakes program for our local, Ontario-bred horses to compete in year-round. It gives them good opportunities in the winter at Belmont," said Tim Lawson, Woodbine's director of racing. "I hope this is a good foundation for working together. There are a lot of benefits and it's a positive step forward." The series will start on the final Saturday in December and will be highlighted by the new Long Island Derby for 3-year-old males and Long Island Oaks for 3-year-old fillies in late January, each worth $300,000. The other six stakes will be worth $200,000 each. With the launch of the new series, it is expected the two $500,000 New York Stallion Series 2-year-old stakes in December will be shifted to November as steppingstones to the Empire Trillium. Offerman did not list specific dates for all-weather racing, saying it will start at some point after the Cigar Mile Handicap (G2) the first weekend in December and end prior to the Wood Memorial Stakes (G2) in early April. On one level, the series should be a boost to the breeding programs in both New York and Canada. "It's commendable that NYRA and Woodbine could come together. To have these 14 additional stakes, eight in our state at Belmont, it's a fantastic opportunity for everyone involved in our program," said Najja Thompson, executive director of the New York Thoroughbred Breeders. "I hope the opportunities excite buyers. We've worked to get increased purses at NYRA and adding to that momentum, this is another great addition. It's great to have two top-tier 'A' tracks working together to help field size and our breeding industries." For NYRA, the series is also a means to make winter stabling in New York more enticing for Woodbine trainers, who race on Tapeta throughout the April-December meet in Canada. Their presence, with purses for all-weather races figuring to be higher than those for Tapeta races at Gulfstream Park, could lead to much better field size numbers next winter. "We remain committed to winter racing and we think this is an exciting way to ensure that a large community of horses utilize Belmont Park and the Tapeta surface," said Offerman, who worked with NYRA racing secretary Rob MacLennan to arrange the Empire Trillium with Woodbine. "There's a lot of opportunities and synchronicities between the two circuits. We know Woodbine trainers like to travel south for part of the winter. They have been on Tapeta for a long time and we know their horse population will transfer. We believe we have an opportunity for them to be competitive and run for significant money at Belmont. We definitely expect to see a strong contingent of Canadians participating in racing at Belmont Park in the fall and winter." Lawson agreed that Belmont would be a good fit for Canadians in the winter. "Belmont is more convenient than going to Florida. It's a very viable option. It's logical to work together for the betterment of the sport and the industry. This is a good first step. I don't think it's been done at this level before and hopefully it will attract new owners and breeders," Lawson said. Trainer Mark Casse, a Hall of Famer in the United States and Canada, has a string in Canada but has not wintered in New York for about 20 years. That will change after Belmont Park reopens Sept. 18. "I think it's the future. I couldn't be more excited about what's going on at Belmont. For us it will open up more opportunities. We haven't run year-round in New York for 20 years, but we're planning to do it this year," Casse said. "With Canadian-breds, it has been a six-month season, but now with an all-weather track at Belmont they will have opportunities all year long. My owners are already responding to it. I think New York-breds and Canadian-breds will be more sought after because of this series." Casse believes the series will fuel what trainers and owners seek most out of racing. Namely, dreams. "When I started out, (owner) Harry Mangurian told me racing is all about dreams and anytime you can give people a dream that's important," Casse said. "People own horses for dreams and this will series create more dreams." The talk of dreams comes at a time when NYRA is coming to the end of a nightmare winter meet. Four- or five-horse fields were common as the meet's average 6.5 field size continued a steady decline from 6.91 in 2023 to 6.86 in 2024 to 6.76 last year. The racing has also been rather predictable as it has been completely dominated by jockeys Manny Franco and Flavien Prat and trainer Linda Rice. Franco has a meet-high 61 wins and 122 firsts and seconds, 46 more than Jaime Rodriguez who has 37 wins and 39 seconds, while Prat won at a 32% clip in his days at the Big A. Rice's meet has been akin to the record-breaking University of Connecticut women's basketball program. She has nearly as many wins as Franco, 60, and has 42 more victories than second-place Brad Cox, a lead unseen at any NYRA meet in recent memory. She has also single-handedly kept the racing cards afloat with 234 starters since the meet began Jan. 1. No one else has more than 100 starters entering Friday's resumption of racing. "I can't fault participants that missed training, but the horse supply we had was down from past years and we had a ton of makeup races," Offerman said. "There's a lot of reasons why all-weather racing makes sense in New York, but you need to look no further than the last four to five weeks to understand what the ultimate goal is and how we hope to recommit to a better winter racing product that will serve everyone better."