Mike and Laurie McAbee from the Dallas area fulfilled their bucket-list item of attending a race day at Kentucky Downs on Sept. 1. They said the experience exceeded expectations.

“It’s the atmosphere. It’s the combination of down-home friendly, Kentucky friendly, but it’s also some of the best horses in the country,” Mike McAbee said. “When you’re a big racing fan, to see the horses and the people up this close, this is an opportunity you don’t get anywhere else. We’ll be back, definitely.”

Whether people attended in person or watched and wagered at simulcast outlets or online accounts, Kentucky Downs’ popularity kept up its growth.

Kentucky Downs’ seven-day meet that ended Wednesday again set records for wagering and purses paid out to horse owners for the 12th straight year. 

Purses totaled $34,624,472 for 76 races, including $13.6 million from the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund available only to registered Kentucky-bred thoroughbreds. That reflects an increase of 38 percent over last year’s total purses of $25.06 million paid out for 76 races. Sixteen of the 18 stakes-winners were foaled in Kentucky, taking full advantage of the KTDF funding.

All-sources wagering totaled $90,181,408, up 8 percent over last year’s $83,640,261. In the six meets with the ownership group headed by Ron Winchell and Marc Falcone at the helm, total betting has increased 148 percent. While that reflects going from five days in 2018 to the current seven days, the per-day average has gone from $7.28 million for five days to the $12.88 million daily average this year.

The signature Saturday Sept. 7 card—this year packaged as the FanDuel TV U.S. Open Turf Championships featuring six graded stakes paying out $2 million apiece to Kentucky-breds and $1 million to others—attracted track-record betting of $21,184,941.

The average field size was 10.89, horses per race, up from the 10.42 last year that led America, and Kentucky Downs’ highest average since 2019.

“We are extremely happy with the results of the meet,” said Ted Nicholson, Kentucky Downs’ Vice President for Racing. “We continue to see positive growth in every metric we look at, and l am already excited for next year’s meet.”

International star Frankie Dettori, riding for the first time at Kentucky Downs, won eight races, one fewer than meet-leaders Irad Ortiz Jr. and Tyler Gaffalione. Four of those were stakes, including the meet’s new signature race the $3.1 million DK Horse Nashville Derby on British invader Bellum Justum and sweeping the pair of closing-day stakes. That ballooned his mounts’ earnings to $3.86 million, topped only by Ortiz’s $4.1 million.

“Listen, it’s amazing,” Dettori said during the meet. “There’s a great incentive to the owners, a great incentive to the European horses to come over. Great incentive for the turf horses in America to race for this kind of money. … I am very pro what they have done here at Kentucky Downs.”

Kentucky Downs’ winning owners have said for years that the big purses give them more bankroll to reinvest at the Keeneland September yearling sale. Horsemen say the track is making turf pedigrees more popular.

“Grass horses are definitely more appealing now,” said trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. “With Kentucky Downs’ purses, it can make the horse’s career. … It’s a huge plus.”

This press release has not been edited by BloodHorse. If there are any questions please contact the organization that produced the release.

By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist

I can’t remember a day in my childhood when I didn’t eat ice cream, probably even a time or two for breakfast. We even served it to Skeeter, our border collie. (One dip in a bowl was an adventure for her to chase around for the lick, but I digress.)

Dad was a wholesale distributor of ice cream to stores, and a perk of his job was free product that he’d bring home to his family. Early on, I’d choose chocolate if given a choice. Dad liked butter pecan, and today that’s my favorite, too. And ironically, with all that tasty dairy product going into my young mouth, I was an embarrassingly skinny kid. A few pounds later, perhaps I should go on a diet of ice cream in my senior life, tsk, tsk.

Of course, Kentuckians all around like this treat, and so I asked a few of them their favorite flavor. Several picked my choice, but I received a variety of answers, including some exotic ones I didn’t recognize.

Some mentioned spumoni, a new one for me. Bill Luxon, a former member of the rock and later country band, Exile, described it as a “Neapolitan-style with three flavors. Typically, chocolate, pistachio, and cherry ice creams.” Bill likes the Prairie Farms brand best when available and noted that Exile’s favorite during his time with them was mint chocolate chip. David Johnston recalled his father bringing home spumoni at Christmas time, but he prefers “a big bowl of peach or mint chocolate chip.”

Frankfort resident Susan Moore remembers a “moo-ving” childhood experience at her father’s soft serve custard stand outside of Columbus, Ohio. “I would stand directly under the ‘cow’ and Dad would laugh and pull the lever that produced a wonderful swirl of soft vanilla ice cream smack dab in my mouth. I’m sure I thought I was in heaven, and in a way, I was.”

Making one’s own ice cream can help bond relationships, according to Alan Abrams, of Claryville. “The actual ice cream took second place to the conversations shared between me and my dad while cranking the ice cream maker,” he said. When the family shopped for the store-bought kind, he noted their choices were butter pecan or black walnut.

Former Lexington resident Susan Gall recalled ice cream was made at her grandparents’ home in Ohio. “The rule was, ‘if you don’t help crank, you don’t get to eat any,’” she explained. “The kids would all take their turns early and after what seemed like an eternity, we’d hear grandpa holler, ‘OVERFLOW.’ That meant it was almost ready and we’d all come running. Everyone would grab a spoon and quickly start scooping up a sample from the overflowing barrel.”

Susan also noted that her first job was at Dairy Queen while her sister, she said, “worked at the competition. Baskin Robbins.”

Jennifer Butler’s raising in the Bluegrass also often brought homemade joyful times. “Snow cream!” she said. “My mom was born in 1936 on a farm in Minnesota. Even though snow was infrequent and scant in quantity in Lexington, Cannonsburg, and lastly Winchester, Kentucky, for me growing up, Mom managed to make those snow days more magical with that creamy, sweet treat!”

Steve Flairty is a teacher, public speaker and an author of seven books: a biography of Kentucky Afield host Tim Farmer and six in the Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes series, including a kids’ version. Steve’s “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes #5,” was released in 2019. Steve is a senior correspondent for Kentucky Monthly, a weekly NKyTribune columnist and a former member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Contact him at sflairty2001@yahoo.com or visit his Facebook page, “Kentucky in Common: Word Sketches in Tribute.” (Steve’s photo by Ernie Stamper)

Butter pecan came up several times, but Berea resident Gin Petty added a qualifier for the choice. “I like butter pecan, too, but I’m partial to butter hickory nut. It’s similar, but there’s more nut flavor. I gather the hickory nuts in the fall, then crack them and pick out the goodies while I’m watching the World Series.”

Nicholasville insurance salesman Randall Wright likes the Crank and Boom ice cream brand because it has no high fructose. “Just the real ingredients,” he noted, “(and) the Bourbon Honey is ‘epic’.”

Louisvillian Sheila Hardcastle makes sure she buys the Tillamook or Breyers brands from the grocery. At Baskin and Robbins, it’s Pralines and Cream and at Ben and Jerry’s, she chooses Chunky Monkey.

When she can find it locally, Julie Sloan, of Morehead, grabs Ben and Jerry’s Super Fudge Chunk. Normally, their vanilla bean flavor will have to do. She likes vanilla a lot. “If I get a milkshake, ninety-nine per cent of the time I’ll order vanilla. She also is partial to coffee, pistachio, and Moosetracks.”

Another vanilla lover is Elizabeth Clark, who also is around sweets at the bakery where she works in Frankfort. She generally enjoys Breyer’s Natural Vanilla, “mostly without toppings, but I’ll sometimes make a Coke float or drizzle a little honey on top,” she noted.

“If I had a picture of my favorite, I’d probably eat it,” said Gayle Deaton, with a grin. “But I love Baskin-Robbin’s Praline’s ‘N Cream and Blue Bell’s or Breyer’s butter pecan. No fixin’s needed.”

And speaking of “sweetness,” I must share what my cousin Linda Bray shared about coming to the Flairty home as a child. “I loved looking into their freezer and trying to decide what to pick,” she said. “Now, I smile when I watch our great-nieces stand at our freezer door discussing which ice cream bar to pick! I hope they will have the same great memory of us!”

A few years ago, while Eric Fruge lived in San Francisco, he discovered, and enjoyed, Tillamook’s Oregon Strawberry Ice Cream. After first returning to Kentucky, he couldn’t find the treat but is delighted that it recently appeared at his Lexington area stores. And how does he like it served? “I love it plain, but a little port (rich wine) in a coffee mug bathed with Oregon Strawberry Ice Cream, topped with chocolate syrup… oh my!”

Over in the western part of the state, in Webster County, Stephanie Brown praised Sebree Dairy Bar for its “excellent shakes and sundaes” and believes that “the best way to eat ice cream is to share.”

In her acclaimed book of essays, Small Acreages, Georgia Green Stamper muses fondly about her youthful days in Owen County, where, along with “fifty or more of us schoolkids,” visited tiny Nick’s Grocery for lunch, then enjoyed dessert with an overflowing sized ice cream cone dipped with great care by Mr. Nick. Georgia’s favorite delight was the butterscotch ripple “back when the butterscotch was a roaring river and not a simpering ripple.”

Along with butter pecan being named the most to the people I asked, here are some others:

Whether we buy it or make it, Kentuckians are likely quite united in their love of ice cream! What’s YOUR favorite?

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The FBI is investigating an apparent assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump Sept. 15. 

Secret Service found a gunman at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, near the former president’s home, Mar-a-Lago. Trump was not injured.

It was the second attempted assassination of Trump in nine weeks.

“We’re in a strange, dark place now,” said Dewey Clayton, professor of political science at the University of Louisville. “I mean, to have two assassination attempts … that’s very frightening.”

The assassination attempts have talks of political rhetoric at the forefront.

“When our political rhetoric heats up and becomes as polarized as it is, people inclined to violence naturally gravitate toward politics as an avenue for carrying out those impulses,” said Stephen Voss, associate professor of political science at the University of Kentucky.

Neither political party is at fault for the recent violence, Voss said.

“When people’s identities are as wrapped up in their political views as many people increasingly are, violence is a natural outcome, regardless of who’s using what rhetoric,” Voss said.

There are several other factors leading to this recent string of political violence, Clayton said, such as accessibility to guns, people seeking notoriety and social media.

He added he hopes politicians will take action.

“Our leaders have a responsibility to also take the lead and try to let everyone know that we need to tone down the language, tone down the rhetoric because this is very dangerous,” Clayton said.

The suspect was taken into custody shortly after Sunday’s incident. The Palm Beach County Sheriff said security at the Mar-a-Lago estate is “the highest it can possibly be.”