Woodbine opens 128-day season April 18 with two seven-race cards

Woodbine is not easing into 2026. The Toronto track opens its 128-day Thoroughbred season with seven races on April 18, another seven-race card on April 19, and enough early depth to matter from the first bell: 45 horses are entered Saturday and 40 more on Sunday.

This is Woodbine’s 71st Thoroughbred racing season at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Ontario, and the opener comes with a clear message for horseplayers. The meet is built to be more than a warm-up act, with opening-day post time set for 1:20 p.m. ET and a mandatory payout on the Power Pick 6 adding immediate betting heat to the first card.

The early season will also put familiar names back in the spotlight. Rafael Hernandez returns to defend his riding title after finishing with 148 wins in 2025 and leading all jockeys in earnings with $6.4 million. Pietro Moran, who broke through last year with a King’s Plate victory aboard Mansetti, finished second in the standings with 139 wins and figures to be a major factor again as the colony sorts itself out.

The stakes landscape gives the meet its spine. Woodbine’s 2026 schedule includes 40 graded stakes, among them five Grade 1 races, and the two marquee $1 million events are set for late summer: the 167th King’s Plate on August 15 and the Grade 1 Woodbine Mile on September 12. For Canadian-bred 3-year-olds, the Triple Crown trail begins with the King’s Plate, then moves to the Prince of Wales Stakes on September 7 at Fort Erie Race Track before ending with the Breeders’ Stakes on September 27 back at Woodbine.

One of the biggest storylines is not a horse or a rider, but the turf course. The E.P. Taylor Turf Course will not open until September because of renovations that began after King’s Plate Day last August. Tim Lawson said the project remains on schedule despite a difficult Toronto winter, and Woodbine expects the course to be ready for Turf Champions Day on September 12.

That card could become one of the defining days of the season. Woodbine says Turf Champions Day will feature four Breeders’ Cup “Win and You’re In” races, the Woodbine Mile, the E.P. Taylor Stakes, the Johnnie Walker Natalma Stakes and the bet365 Summer Stakes, the first time the track has hosted four such qualifiers on one program. The opener is only seven races long, but the shape of the whole season is already there: title defenses, classic routes, turf stakes and a calendar that quickly turns from spring experiment to championship campaign.