Horseshoe Indianapolis at a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Racing | Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse |
| Track | One-mile dirt, seven-eighths-mile turf |
| 2026 meet | April 7 – November 13 |
| Gaming | 1,489 machines, 85 tables (August 2026) |
| Signature races | Indiana Derby (G3), Indiana Oaks (G3) |
Horseshoe Indianapolis is the only Indiana track that offers flat racing, so every Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse race run in the state on a pari-mutuel license happens here. The sister property, Harrah’s Hoosier Park in Anderson, covers harness racing. Both belong to Caesars, and both are covered on the Indiana racinos page.
The 2026 racing schedule
The 2026 meet is the track’s 24th season. It opened on Tuesday, April 7, with nine races, including two $55,000 handicaps such as the Merrill C. Roberts. The approved calendar closes on Friday, November 13, a racing schedule of a little over seven months that runs from spring meadows to the first frosts of late autumn in Shelby County.
Quarter Horses get their own Saturday programs, which start early at 10:45 a.m., and a Veterans Day card on Wednesday, November 11, has a first post of 2:01 p.m. Weekday post times shift during the year, so the daily entries are the safest guide. The national horse racing calendar lists the meet alongside other tracks.
Indiana Derby, Indiana Oaks and the betting menu
The Indiana Derby is a Grade 3 race for three-year-olds over 1 1/16 miles, worth $300,000 and run in July. It began at Hoosier Park in 1995 and moved here in 2013. Winners include Dragoon Guard in 2024, Tip Top Thomas in 2025 and Leading Change in 2026. The Grade 3 Indiana Oaks for fillies shares the program.
New in 2026 is a Last Call Daily Double on each day’s final two Thoroughbred races, with a 15 percent takeout. The first floor of the grandstand works as a year-round simulcast room, and the second floor holds Clubhouse Dining with views over the dirt oval and the turf course. Pools are explained in the pari-mutuel guide.
The Horseshoe Indianapolis casino floor
The gaming floor covers more than 100,000 square feet. In August 2026 the Indiana Gaming Commission counted 1,489 electronic gaming devices and 85 live tables, the largest table count of the two racinos. Slot win that month was about $24.4 million and table win about $4.8 million, with blackjack and baccarat accounting for most of the table units.
Table games include blackjack, roulette, craps, baccarat, Three Card Poker and Mississippi Stud, and some blackjack and poker variants carry progressive side-bet jackpots. Electronic tables offer blackjack, craps and roulette on flat screens. Live dealers arrived in January 2020 under a 2019 state law, and Caesars completed a roughly $32 million expansion of the casino floor in 2021.
Poker, sportsbook and nightlife
Poker players use a World Series of Poker room, which track profiles describe as a 20-table room with cash games and scheduled tournaments. A retail Caesars Sportsbook sits on the casino floor, and Center Bar is one of the drinks stops on the gaming floor itself. The casino and the sportsbook both require guests to be 21 or older.
Live music has featured in the past, with touring bands, tribute acts and DJs, but the casino’s show listings carry no upcoming dates at present. Visitors should check the events page close to a trip; race days in summer, especially the Indiana Derby card in July, are a more dependable reason to visit Horseshoe Indianapolis.
Dining at the track
Jack Binion’s Steak is the formal option, serving dry-aged steaks, seafood and pasta near the high-limit area. Brew Brothers is a pub with beer and casual plates, Sidewalk Café sells burgers, baked goods and donuts as grab-and-go food, and Clubhouse Dining opens only during the racing season, with a view of the track from the second floor.
Getting there, parking and hotels
The address is 4300 North Michigan Road in Shelbyville. From Indianapolis, most drivers take Interstate 74 southeast and leave at the Michigan Road exit. Parking is in surface lots around the casino and grandstand. There is no hotel on the property; Caesars lists partner hotels in and around Shelbyville, and Indianapolis is close enough for a day trip.
Nearby racing options extend in several directions. Anderson’s harness track lies to the north on the far side of Indianapolis, and Ohio’s Belterra Park runs Thoroughbreds near Cincinnati to the southeast. Kentucky’s tracks, such as Ellis Park and Turfway Park, pair their racing with historical horse racing machines rather than with the slot machines used in Indiana.
From Indiana Downs to Horseshoe
Indiana Downs held its first season of racing in 2003. A 2007 law let both tracks install slot machines, and the casino, then called Indiana Live!, opened on March 13, 2009. The owners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2011, and in 2012 and 2013 the casino and track were rebranded as Indiana Grand.
Centaur Gaming took control in 2013 and sold both Indiana racinos to Caesars in 2018 for about $1.7 billion. The Horseshoe name arrived in January 2022 as part of a company-wide rebranding. Horseshoe Indianapolis treats casino play as paid entertainment; setting a budget before arriving, and stopping when it is spent, keeps a race day affordable.