ETOBICOKE, Ontario – Woodbine launches its 2024 season Saturday with a slightly shorter meet that includes some noteworthy changes to its lucrative stakes schedule. The meet is scheduled for 129 days, four less than previously, while going until Dec. 15. Racing will be conducted on weekends until May 10, when Fridays are added. Thursday cards begin May 23 with a post time of 4:50 p.m. Eastern. The post time for Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays is 1:10 p.m. The lone Monday program is Labor Day, Sept. 2. The $1 million King’s Plate, North America’s oldest annually run stakes, goes Aug. 17 on an excellent card that also features the Grade 2 King Edward and Grade 3 Bold Venture, along with a pair of turf stakes for 2-year-olds. A record handle of $18.1 million was generated on the 2023 King’s Plate card on a Sunday. This year’s Plate program has been switched to a Saturday with the hope of bolstering business, according to Tim Lawson, Woodbine’s vice president of racing. :: Bet the races with a $200 First Deposit Match + FREE All Access PPs! Join DRF Bets. “It was a company-wide decision,” Lawson explained. “We were very pleased with last year’s King’s Plate performance, but we’re always looking at ways to improve. It’s no secret that the wagering market is stronger on Saturdays than Sundays. We are aware that there’s quite a bit of competition from Saratoga and Del Mar, but running on Alabama Day and not Travers Day might help us out. From an event perspective, it’s exciting to have it on a Saturday. We’re optimistic about it being just as popular on a Saturday.” Canadian-bred 3-year-olds will prep for the Plate on July 20 in either the Woodbine Oaks or Plate Trial Stakes on a card that also includes the Grade 2 Connaught Cup and Grade 3 Trillium. The $1 million Woodbine Mile, a successful Breeders’ Cup Mile prep, heads a blockbuster six-stakes card Sept. 14 that includes three other Grade 1 stakes, the E.P. Taylor, Summer, and Natalma. The Woodbine Mile, Summer, and Natalma are BC Win and You’re In qualifiers. Woodbine has shelved the historic Canadian International, which wasn’t run in 2020 and 2022, while moving up the E.P. Taylor from its traditional October date. “It wasn’t an easy decision to drop a Grade 1 for a year,” Lawson said. “It’s one our most prestigious races, with [winners] like Secretariat that put it on the map. There’s a shrinking pool of horses throughout North America of Grade 1 caliber who can accommodate that kind of distance on the turf. We rely so heavily on European horses to ship over and to upkeep the race’s reputation. The travel limitations in terms of the availability on overseas cargo flights this year would make it very difficult to bring over those horses. We decided it wasn’t a viable option for this year, but we hope to bring it back in the future.” Lawson felt the addition of the E.P. Taylor to the Woodbine Mile program was a move that could improve the quality of the 1 1/4-mile turf event for females. “We’re showcasing all of our Grade 1 races and some of the best horses in the world, all together,” Lawson explained. “It makes the travel logistics for those shipping in a little easier, if they’re bunching together some of their best horses. It gives those mares a little more time to hopefully go on to the Breeders’ Cup. From a marketing standpoint, it made sense to us.” The Grade 3 stakes at the meet had their purses lowered from $150,000 to $135,000, including next Saturday’s Whimsical. “It was a restructuring,” Lawson said. “We just needed to just find a bit more of a balance in our program to ensure that we could [maintain] the [overall] competitiveness of our program, including our strong overnight purses.” Woodbine’s “race and stay” policy, whereby horses that ship to Fort Erie for a race would lose their stall at Woodbine, has been a bone of contention for many horsemen. Lawson said a decision is pending regarding whether the policy will return for this year. “We’re in talks right now with Fort Erie, and they’ve been productive discussions,” Lawson said. “Just like anywhere else in North America, there’s a horse shortage. A proper condition book coordination that benefits both sides is the answer to where we want to get to.” A new wrinkle regarding eligibility for open allowances is that 2- and 3-year-old restricted stakes wins at the Ontario-sired and Ontario-bred levels will not count against such runners for eligibility. A huge new casino, run by Great Canadian Entertainment, and a 400-room hotel overlooking the track, opened on the east side of the grandstand last year. The formal grand opening for the casino is May 3, when an adjoining 5,000-seat theater opens with a concert by Gwen Stefani. Her husband, Blake Shelton, performs the next day. “It’s a big development that allows for us to really promote and market and start bringing more people onto the site,” Woodbine CEO Michael Copeland said. “We run all the food and beverage service within the casino and the theater. Those revenues come back to racing for us to ultimately work back into our overall support of the racing industry.” Copeland said the construction of a train station in the southeast corner of the Woodbine property should begin later this year, which would be a stop on the Go Transit commuter line that leads to downtown Toronto. “There’s really good government support for our plans and we’re making good progress in finalizing agreements to get shovels in the ground on the train station,” Copeland said. “We’re working with Metrolinx, which is the agency that’s responsible for the transit network and for building the station. We expect to have the approvals in place and to start the work sometime this year.” Woodbine has a new infield LED video board that is 20 percent larger than the previous one and displays in a higher resolution. It will be one continuous board that will allow the opportunity to use the entire screen to display one feed or the potential of 12 different inputs configured into various shapes and sizes. It will be used for displaying live video, handicapping data, and fan engagements. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.