The Red Mile is a horse racing track located in

Lexington, Kentucky Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County. By population, it is the second-largest city in Kentucky and 57th-largest city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 28th-largest ...

, United States. The track hosts

harness racing Harness racing is a form of horse racing in which the horses race at a specific gait (a trot or a pace). They usually pull a two-wheeled cart called a sulky, or spider, or chariot occupied by a driver. In Europe, and less frequently in Austral ...

, a type of

horse racing Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic pr ...

in which the horses must pull two-wheeled carts called

sulkies A sulky is a lightweight cart with two wheels and a seat for the driver, generally pulled by horses or dogs. With horses, a sulky is used for harness racing. The term is also used for an arch-mounted cart on wheels or crawler tracks, used i ...

while racing. It is one of harness racing's most famous tracks and is located in the heart of the Bluegrass region, an area of

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

famous for

horse breeding Horse breeding is reproduction in horses, and particularly the human-directed process of selective breeding of animals, particularly purebred horses of a given breed. Planned matings can be used to produce specifically desired characteristics in ...

and

racing In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific go ...

. In 2014, The Red Mile announced it was partnering with Keeneland to build a $30 million historical racing facility, with 1,000 terminals, scheduled to open September 2015. In May 2015, Keeneland also announced that it would move most of its Off-track betting operations to The Red Mile beginning July 15, 2015, investing over $2 million upgrading The Red Mile's grandstand area.

Facilities

The race track itself is one mile long and made of red clay, which gives the track its name. In addition to the race track, The Red Mile features a two-story clubhouse, a round barn, and a park. The clubhouse is often used for weddings, parties, and other gatherings. The Tattersalls area can accommodate large groups and is often used for horse sales.

History

The track was founded on September 28, 1875 and was sponsored by the Kentucky Trotting Horse Breeders Association. Attendance to the opening races was minimal because the track had not been advertised. Once newspapers published articles about the new track, attendance picked up. The track is the second-oldest

track in the world and the oldest horse racing track in

Lexington Lexington may refer to: Places England * Laxton, Nottinghamshire, formerly Lexington Canada * Lexington, a district in Waterloo, Ontario United States * Lexington, Kentucky, the largest city with this name * Lexington, Massachusetts, the oldes ...

. The Red Mile hosts one of the legs of the Triple Crown of Harness Racing for Trotters, the annual Kentucky Futurity. Since 2017, American Flat Track motorcycle racing is conducted during the off-season.

References

External links

* * {{coord, 38, 02, 39, N, 84, 31, 06, W, source:ACME_Mapper, display=title Harness racing venues in the United States