Turf Paradise Race Course

Turf Paradise is a thoroughbred and quarter horse racetrack at 19th Avenue and Bell Road, in the Deer Valley section of Phoenix, Arizona. It opened in 1956 and is typically open for racing from early November through April, holding the Turf Paradise Derby for three-year-olds in February, a prep race for the Kentucky Derby that carries no qualifying points. The track is owned and operated by the local entrepreneur Jerry Simms with several partners. A real estate company entered into an agreement to buy the property for redevelopment in April 2023; in late September that year the agreement was reported to have fallen through, with a new buyer intending to continue live racing at the track.

Where it is

Turf Paradise Race Course is a landmark near Phoenix, in Maricopa County. It is one of the landmarks in this database, and appears in the statewide ranking of Arizona attractions.

How this ranking was reached

No official visitor count is published for Turf Paradise Race Course, so its score rests on public interest and tourism significance, and is capped below the level a measured attraction can reach. That is why the medium confidence above is not higher. The weighting is explained in full on the methodology page, and every axis is broken out under Facts and sources at the foot of this page.

Note on the data: No official visitor count is published for this attraction.

Sources

• Public interest: Wikimedia pageviews (en.wikipedia, human traffic), 2024
• Coordinates and designations: Wikidata(opens in a new tab)
• County: U.S. Census geography via FCC Area API, resolved from coordinates
• Official site: http://www.turfparadise.com(opens in a new tab)

Record last verified 2026-08-12.