The Churchill Downs spring/summer meet is ready to roll starting on opening day, Saturday, April 25. The meet is sure to be one of horse racing’s top spring simulcast signals for handicappers and bettors throughout the season.

Kentucky Derby Day on May 2 will be the headline event of the season, but it is far from being the only meaningful day for horseplayers. The Derby comes and goes at the beginning of the spring season leaving nearly two months more racing and wagering still to come until the end of June. Churchill will run on mainly a four-day-a-week schedule, Thursdays through Sundays, and the track will add Wednesdays to the schedule in June up through closing day on June 28. The schedule on Kentucky Derby week will be from Tuesday, April 28 through Kentucky Oaks Day on Friday, May 1 and Derby Day on May 2.

Read onward for a look at track handicapping trends that horseplayers can use to help you win during the entire Churchill Downs season – Derby week and beyond.

New wagers to consider

Churchill Downs is rolling out a few new betting options for the spring meet starting on Derby/Oaks weekend when Churchill will offer a new 50-cent All-Turf Pick 4 bet for Friday and Saturday. New bets throughout the meet will be an Odd vs. Even bet and a Matchup head-to-head wager, both with 17.5% takeouts. Churchill will introduce a $1 Jackpot Eight bet once a day that will challenge bettors to pick the top eight finishers in a race, in order, with a 22% takeout. Superfectas will offer a $1 minimum on Derby and Oaks days and will have a 10-cent minimum all other days.

Top Churchill Downs spring jockeys

2025 spring meet leader Jose Ortiz. (Coady Media)

Jose Ortiz was the new kid on the block in 2024 when he first joined the Churchill Downs jockey colony on a full-time basis. Since then, he has firmly established himself as one of the top riders in the Midwest and he seems to be primed to win the Churchill jockey title again this season after running away with the spring 2025 title with 63 victories.

There figure to be two big differences in the Churchill jockey colony this spring as opposed to last spring, starting with the presence of Tyler Gaffalione, who missed last year’s meet with an injury. When last seen at a Churchill spring meet in 2024, Gaffalione finished in a tie for the jockey title with Jose Ortiz at 45 wins apiece. This spring’s standings should end up looking a lot more like those 2024 results than last year’s. Gaffalione won the Churchill spring/summer meet jockey title in 2021 and 2022.

The other major player should be Irad Ortiz Jr., who is leading Keeneland’s spring meet in wins with three cards remaining. Irad spent most of his time at Churchill Downs during the November 2025 meet and led in wins over brother Jose, 47 to 27. The five-time Eclipse Award winner will take mounts in New York after Derby week but could be at Churchill more often than not. Irad won 11 races at Churchill’s spring meet last year and 16 races two years ago.

Yet another jockey that will be in contention atop the standings will be Luis Saez, who won the spring 2023 meet title. Since then, Saez has remained near the top of the leaderboard. He was third in the standings in 2024 with 32 wins and second in the standings last year with 47 wins at the meet.

Other jockeys you can expect to find in the top 10 on the Churchill spring/summer leaderboard include Brian Hernandez Jr., Edgar Morales, Luan Machado, Jaime Torres, Rafael Bejarano, and Cristian Torres. You’ll also see a lot of Ben Curtis and Julien Leparoux, but both of them posted sub-10% win percentages at last year’s meet.

Churchill Downs spring leading trainers

Joe Sharp (Lou Hodges, Jr. /Hodges Photography)

There was a three-way scramble for the spring 2025 Churchill training title and in the end, it was Joe Sharp who prevailed atop the leaderboard with 20 wins (19%) to outpace Brad Cox (19 wins, 20%) and Steve Asmussen (17 wins, 10%). Asmussen was the runaway winningest trainer at Churchill Downs’ 2024 spring meet with 33 wins at 18% as Cox and Mike Maker also each had solid seasons that year with 20 victories apiece and win percentages of 22% and 24% respectively. Maker did well last spring too with another 13 wins and an 18% win percentage. Sharp will have a shot at a repeat training title in 2026 after also compiling good Churchill spring meet records of 11-for-65 (17%) in 2024, 7-for-29 (24%) in 2023, and 15-for-64 (23%) in 2022.

Beyond just looking at the top trainers in the win standings, bettors also want to consider the trainers with the best win percentages at the meet. Based on last spring’s results, horses trained by Cherie DeVaux (10-for-44, 23% in spring 2025 after winning 25% in 2024), Bill Mott (8-for-24, 33% in 2025 after winning 28% in 2024), Wesley Ward (8-for-30, 27% in 2025 after winning 31% in 2024), and Will Walden (6-for-20, 30% in spring 2025) will also be good bets this season.

Churchill Downs main track trends

The Churchill Downs dirt track is a unique surface that has its quirks that some horses love and others don’t. You will sometimes hear the dirt track referred to as “cuppy,” meaning it doesn’t retain moisture. This factor makes Churchill Downs one of the tracks where the horse-for-the-course angle should be considered the most.

Churchill Downs dirt mile races are run around one turn and can sometimes play more like sprints than routes. Horses stretching out may tend to do better in those mile races than horses trying to cut back from longer two-turn route races. Always give preference in your handicapping to horses that are already proven performers in one-turn mile races.

As a Churchill handicapper, you also should make yourself acutely aware of any inside/outside biases happening during any given season. Pay particular attention to the rail path because in the past, the Churchill rail has been susceptible to mostly negative track biases. Keep an eye on how inside horses are doing at the meet, or on a particular day, and adjust your picks accordingly.

Churchill winning main track running styles

‘And they’re off’ at Churchill Downs. (Coady Media)

The first thing you’ll want to take into account when handicapping Churchill Downs dirt races is a horse’s running style. There were a total of 192 dirt sprint races run at Churchill’s spring meet in 2025, and 102 of them (53%) were won by horses racing on or close to the pace within a length of the front. A similar 49% of the dirt sprints at the 2024 spring meet were won by speed horses. Most of the other winners were stalkers, as defined as coming from between one and four lengths off the pace. Stalkers won 67 of last season’s dirt sprints (35% of the races). Closers coming from four or more lengths off the pace were the big losers in dirt sprints with wins in only 23 of the 192 races, only a 12% strike rate.

These statistics have remained consistent. If you go back to 2023, front runners won 53% of the dirt sprints, stalkers won 32%, and closers won 15%. Based on this persistent track profile, you have to give an advantage to horses with speed or at least some tactical speed in dirt sprints in order to be successful betting at Churchill Downs.

In Churchill Downs dirt route races, including races at one mile, closers were also at a disadvantage at recent spring meets. There were 128 dirt routes run at the 2025 spring meet including 47 dirt miles and 81 two-turn routes.

At the main track distance of one mile in spring 2025, front-runners won 45%, stalkers won 38%, and closers won 17%. Closers were at a similar disadvantage two years ago when they won 21% of the dirt miles.

In two-turn dirt route races at the 2025 spring meet, it was stalkers that far outperformed the other running styles. Stalkers won 38 of the 81 two-turn routes to account for wins in 47% of the races. Speed horses won 26 times to account for 32%, and closers won 17 races to account for 21%.

This means that early speed is much more effective in sprints and miles. In longer routes you want to give preference to stalkers coming from one to four lengths behind.

Post positions for all types of dirt races including sprints, miles, and routes mostly all played fair.

Churchill Downs turf racing

Exciting grass racing at Churchill. (Eclipse Sportswire)

There were 63 turf route races run at the 2025 Churchill spring meet and post positions mainly played fair. Win percentages did slightly tail off starting at post position number 7 and got worse the further out you go.

The main handicapping trend in turf routes has more to do with running styles than post positions and the trends favor off-the-pace horses in Churchill turf routes. Early speed horses on or close to the pace won only 13 of the 63 turf routes run at the 2025 spring meet to account for 21% of the winners. Stalkers won 24 times for 38% of the races, and closers won 26 times for 41% of the races. In 58 turf routes run at the meet back in 2024, those statistics were 24% for speed horses, 50% for stalkers, and 26% for closers.

With 33 turf sprints being run at the 2025 spring meet, Churchill Downs is clearly carding more turf sprints than ever before (there were only 16 such races in spring 2024). Churchill’s turf sprints in spring 2025 showed only a slight preference for speed with 13 winning front-runners, 11 winning stalkers, and nine winning closers. In case you are afraid to bet outside posts in turf sprints, note that post positions have been amazingly fair in these races the past two years.

The Churchill Downs spring/summer meet is always one of the best meets to watch and wager at this time of year. Handicappers that stay on top of the winning trends throughout the season can improve their win percentage and profitability. Enjoy the races and best of luck!