With Churchill Downs, Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen calling Virginia “a great place to invest,” Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Sunday announced a significant expansion of Colonial Downs’s racing season – and national footprint.

In 2025, Colonial will add a spring race meet, and the centerpiece of that new meet will be a repurposed Virginia Derby, contested on the dirt. The Virginia Derby 2.0 will be worth 50 Kentucky Derby points to the winner – likely enough to get the winner a spot in the starting gate in Louisville.

“A horse that runs here, in Virginia, will most likely participate in the most exciting two minutes in sports,” Youngkin told a cheering throng during Sunday’s race card, featuring the Grade 1 Arlington Million.

When Colonial began in 1997, it ran a dirt-only fall meet. But it soon shifted to a turf-centric summer meet, which has been its calling card for most of its existence. 

Colonial closed following the 2013 race meet and remained shuttered until it was reborn, with the aid of historical horse racing (HHR) machines, in 2019. In its new incarnation, it had continued to race a summertime meet, this year including 27 days from early July through early September.

But Virginia’s racing law calls for the track to host one day of live racing for each 100 HHR machines. As more machines come online – up to the current statutory maximum of 5,000 – the track will need to expand its race meet.

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