LEXINGTON, Ky. -- The 2026 Spring Meet at Keeneland is in the history books.
The 15-day horse racing meet at the Lexington track began April 3 and ended Friday, with plenty of action in between.
The leading trainer and jockey for the Spring Meet are familiar faces at Keeneland, but plenty of notable results also occurred along the way, including a dominant performance by a Kentucky Derby favorite.
Before the attention shifts to the Grade 1, $5 million Kentucky Derby on May 2 at Churchill Downs in Louisville, here's what you need to know from this year's Spring Meet at Keeneland:
Further Ado impresses with Blue Grass Stakes win
Let's start with a horse that will receive plenty of buzz in the lead-up to the Kentucky Derby.
Further Ado, a Brad Cox trainee, rocketed up the list of Derby favorites following an 11-length victory in the Grade 1, $1.25 million Toyota Blue Grass Stakes on April 4 at Keeneland.
The horse, ridden by Irad Ortiz Jr., will enter the Kentucky Derby with the second-most qualifying points in the projected field. Further Ado also won the Grade 2 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes at Churchill Downs in November and ran second in the Grade 3 ESMARK Tampa Bay Derby.
Further Ado -- which has three wins from six career starts -- is owned by Spendthrift Farm and was bred by John C. Oxley. The horse's sire is Gun Runner, the 2017 Horse of the Year. Further Ado's mare is Sky Dreamer, who was by Sky Mesa.
The post-position draw for the Kentucky Derby will take place Saturday afternoon at Churchill Downs.
Further Ado is bidding to become the first horse to win both the Blue Grass Stakes and the Derby since Strike the Gold in 1991. Strike the Gold is the most recent of 10 horses who have pulled off the Blue Grass-Derby double.
Also making a major statement during the Spring Meet was Percy's Bar, a filly who scored a 2-and-1/4-length victory in the Grade 1, $750,000 Central Bank Ashland on April 3 to position the horse as one of the top choices for Friday's Grade 1, $1.5 million Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs.
Cox wins another training title at Keeneland
Cox, the trainer of Further Ado, had yet another prolific meet at Keeneland.
He won his ninth Keeneland leading-trainer title after saddling 17 winners from 43 starters over the 15-day Spring Meet. Last year, Cox shared the trainer title with Brendan Walsh at the 2025 Spring Meet. Cox was the leading trainer for the 2025 Fall Meet at Keeneland.
In addition to Further Ado's victory in the Blue Grass, Cox trained three other stakes winners during the Spring Meet. Those horses were Eclatant in the Grade 1 Resolute Racing Madison Stakes, Saudi Crown in the Grade 3 Commonwealth Stakes and Alpine Princess in the Grade 2 Baird Doubledogdare Stakes.
Changes also took place on the leaderboard for all-time trainer wins at Keeneland.
Rusty Arnold still leads all conditioners with 315 race wins at Keeneland, but Arnold only leads Bill Mott by one race win on the all-time leaderboard. Mott has won 314 career races at Keeneland.
Wesley Ward won his 300th race at Keeneland on Friday in the penultimate race of the Spring Meet. Rounding out the top five trainers on the Keeneland all-time wins leaderboard are the late D. Wayne Lukas with 296 wins and Todd Pletcher with 293 wins.
Ward had 10 winners from 38 starters during this year's Spring Meet.
Ortiz Jr. is jockey with the most Spring Meet wins
In similar fashion to Cox, a familiar face cruised to the leading-rider title at this year's Spring Meet.
Ortiz, Jr. was the winning jockey in 22 races during the meet, which represented five more race wins than the next closest jockey.
This is Ortiz's third leading jockey title at Keeneland. He was also the leading rider at the Lexington track during the 2024 Spring Meet and the 2025 Fall Meet.
Ortiz won three stakes races during the Spring Meet. In addition to his winning mount aboard Further Ado in the Blue Grass, Ortiz also scored race wins aboard Eclatant in the Madison and Alpine Princess in the Doubledogdare. All of Ortiz's stakes wins came with horses who were trained by Cox.
Flavien Prat was second in the leading-jockey standings with 17 race victories. There was a tie for third between Luis Saez and Jose Ortiz, who each had 15 wins.
Godolphin is the leading owner for 2026 Spring Meet
The leading owner for this year's Keeneland Spring Meet was Godolphin, which bred and owns 2025 Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winner Sovereignty.
Godolphin owned four winners during the Spring Meet, but no stakes winners.
This is the seventh leading-owner title at Keeneland for Godolphin.
Keeneland opens Paddock Building to public, reports wagering totals
The 2026 Spring Meet was the first race meet at Keeneland in which patrons could use the newly-constructed Paddock Building.
The venue allows for more than 1,000 dining tickets each race day and was part of a $93 million expansion project at Keeneland that began in 2024.
The Paddock Building offers five new dining experiences for Keeneland patrons:
- Keeneland reported all-sources wagering of $209,351,173 during the Spring Meet. That total is excluding whole-card simulcasting at Keeneland.
- That all-sources wagering total is a more than 8% increase over the total of $192,676,486 that was wagered during the 2025 Spring Meet.
- Keeneland reported all-sources wagering of $42.1 million across the opening weekend of the Spring Meet on April 3 and April 4.
Three horses die following Spring Meet racing incidents
Keeneland reported three horse deaths during the Spring Meet.
High Go, Autism Honor G and Sing for Mo Money all died following racing incidents at the Lexington track.
Autism Honor G and Sing for Mo Money were both 2-year-olds, while High Go was a 3-year-old. Both Autism Honor G, a filly, and Sing for Mo Money were making their racing debuts.
Last year, at least five horses died at Keeneland following racing incidents across the Spring and Fall Meets.