Kentucky Derby Downturn?

There is an article in this morning’s USA Today examining the economic downturn and the relation to this weekend’s Kentucky Derby. The article comments on some of the activity around this year’s derby. Some of the more interesting numbers:

-An estimated 100 million dollar boost in revenue.  A normal Derby weekend is around 120 million dollar revenue boost

-Hotels seeing a 15-20 percent vacancy rate when normal Derby weekends hotels are operating at capacity

The question is whether or not the overall handle will see a decrease as well. The article states that betting is down in the US this year. The Derby is about 4 percent of Churchhill’s yearly pari-mutuel revenue.  It will be interesting to see what happens.