Top 10 Largest Horse Racing Venues by Capacity (2026)

The largest horse racing venue in the world is Tokyo Racecourse in Fuchu, Japan, licensed for 223,000 spectators. Churchill Downs is the largest outside Japan at 165,000, and holds racing’s biggest verified single-day crowd: 170,513 at the 2015 Kentucky Derby. Five of the ten largest racecourses on earth are Japanese.

The 10 largest racecourses by capacity (2026)

Capacity here is licensed site capacity, covering grandstands, lawns, enclosures and infield rather than seats. Two historically large tracks, Belmont Park and Pimlico, are excluded because both are mid-reconstruction in 2026 and covered separately below.

#	Racecourse	Capacity	Location	Opened	Owner or operator	Signature race
1	Tokyo Racecourse	223,000	Fuchu, Japan	1933	Japan Racing Association	Japan Cup, Tokyo Yushun
2	Nakayama Racecourse	165,676	Funabashi, Japan	1907	Japan Racing Association	Arima Kinen
3	Churchill Downs	165,000	Louisville, USA	1875	Churchill Downs Incorporated	Kentucky Derby
4	Hanshin Racecourse	139,877	Takarazuka, Japan	1949	Japan Racing Association	Takarazuka Kinen
5	Flemington Racecourse	130,000	Melbourne, Australia	1840	Victoria Racing Club	Melbourne Cup
6	Kyoto Racecourse	120,000	Kyoto, Japan	1925	Japan Racing Association	Kikuka Sho
7	Hipódromo de San Isidro	100,000	San Isidro, Argentina	1935	Jockey Club (Argentina)	Gran Premio Carlos Pellegrini
8	Sha Tin Racecourse	85,000	Sha Tin, Hong Kong	1978	Hong Kong Jockey Club	Hong Kong International Races
9	Santa Anita Park	85,000	Arcadia, USA	1934	The Stronach Group (1/ST)	Santa Anita Derby
10	Epsom Downs	80,000	Epsom, England	Racing since 1661	Jockey Club Racecourses	The Derby

Just outside the ten: Hipódromo da Gávea in Rio de Janeiro at 80,000, opened in 1926 and run by the Jockey Club Brasileiro; Aintree at 75,000, home of the Grand National since 1839; Niigata Racecourse at 75,000, built in 1965; and Ascot at 70,000, first raced in 1711 and still operated by Ascot Racecourse Ltd.

Why do Japanese racecourses dominate the list?

Because the Japan Racing Association runs a deliberately small national circuit of very large tracks rather than a long tail of small ones. Ten JRA courses stage the country’s top-level racing, so each is built for crowds that a British or American track would never need to accommodate on a single day.

The scale is easy to underestimate. Tokyo Racecourse alone is licensed for more people than the largest stadium in the world can hold, with 91,000 to spare. Nakayama, Hanshin and Kyoto would each outrank every stadium in the United States. The buildings match: Kyoto closed from November 2020 until spring 2023 purely to rebuild its grandstand for the course’s centenary, with racing moved to Hanshin and Chukyo in the meantime.

How racecourse capacity is measured, and why it beats stadiums

A racecourse capacity is a site licence, not a seat count. It covers the grandstand, the members’ lawns, the enclosures and, at tracks like Churchill Downs, an infield sold as general admission. A stadium capacity is the number of people the stands can hold.

That difference explains the whole ranking. Churchill Downs seats a fraction of 165,000; the rest of the number is standing and lawn space spread across a very large site. The same logic puts motor circuits above everything: Indianapolis Motor Speedway is licensed for around 400,000 and Le Mans for 234,800, which is why circuits and racecourses are kept off stadium lists such as the biggest stadiums in the US entirely.

Kentucky Derby and Melbourne Cup attendance records

The Kentucky Derby holds the largest verified single-day crowd in racing at 170,513, set in 2015 when American Pharoah won on his way to the Triple Crown. It beat the previous record of 165,307 from 2012.

Event	Record crowd	Year	Venue	Note
Kentucky Derby	170,513	2015	Churchill Downs	Beat 165,307 set in 2012
Melbourne Cup	122,736	2003	Flemington	Attendance capped near 120,000 since 2007

The Melbourne Cup record has a hard ceiling in front of it. After 2003, the Victoria Racing Club introduced a ticketing strategy in 2007 that caps Cup Day attendance at around 120,000 to prevent overcrowding, so 122,736 is likely to stand indefinitely. Flemington’s four-day carnival still draws a larger aggregate crowd than any single Derby day.

Both records sit above the listed capacity of most stadiums on earth, which is worth holding in mind when a racecourse and a stadium are compared on the same list.

Two of the biggest racecourses are being rebuilt

Belmont Park and Pimlico are both out of the 2026 ranking because both are construction sites.

Belmont Park, historically licensed around 90,000, is in the final stage of a $455 million modernisation run by the New York Racing Association. The track reopens on 18 September 2026, but only in phase one: the Backyard paddock area and two public levels open first, with attendance capped near 6,000 while the upper grandstand is completed. The finished 275,000 square foot grandstand is designed for roughly 50,000, so Belmont will return smaller than it was and better than it was.

Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, previously listed at 98,983, was demolished in 2025 for a $400 million state-funded reconstruction. The 2026 Preakness Stakes moved to Laurel Park, about 20 miles south, the first time in 118 years the race has been run away from Pimlico. The new course is designed for more than 100 live racing days a year against Pimlico’s recent 15, with the Preakness expected back in Baltimore in 2027.

Both projects follow the same logic as the stadium rebuilds tracked on the stadiums hub: older venues trading raw capacity for usable capacity, because a licensed 90,000 that only fills once a year is worth less than 50,000 that fills often.