NEWS
Breeders’ Cup seeks Grade 1 status for new races
Posted: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 5:03 PM
by Jeff Lowe
Breeders’ Cup Ltd. sent the American Graded Stakes Committee a letter on November 19 asking the panel to consider issuing Grade 1 status to the three $1-million races that joined the World Championships program this year.
The committee denied the same request in April, and the first editions of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf ran without grades.
The American Graded Stakes Committee was to address the second request at its grading session for the 2008 season on Tuesday and Wednesday in Lexington.
“It will be interesting to see whether any of them will warrant a Grade 1 and with only one running,” said Pam Blatz-Murff, senior vice president of Breeders’ Cup operations.
In general, races are not eligible for grades unless they have run twice under essentially the same conditions, which was a major factor the panel cited in denying the April request.
The committee did waive the rule in 1984 when all seven original Breeders’ Cup races were granted immediate Grade 1 status and again in 1999 when the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf (G1) was added to the program.
Grade 1 winners prevailed in two of the three new races on the new Friday program at Monmouth Park—Corinthian in the Dirt Mile and Maryfield in the Filly and Mare Sprint. Third-place finisher Discreet Cat was the only other Grade 1 winner in the Dirt Mile, and fifth-place finisher Dream Rush was the only other Grade 1 winner in the Filly and Mare Sprint.
The Juvenile Turf did not draw any Group 1 winners from Europe. There are no Grade 1 races for two-year-olds on the turf in the United States.
Blatz-Murff said Breeders’ Cup staff is working on a proposal to add a fourth $1-million race in 2008, a plan that the company’s board of directors will receive in December. Breeders’ Cup Chief Executive Officer Greg Avioli has said the new race would most likely be a turf sprint.
The board also will consider altering the undercard program on the Friday card, which this year included three stakes funded by the Breeders’ Cup worth $250,000 each.
In 2008 at Santa Anita Park—the first World Championships program to be run on a synthetic surface—the Breeders’ Cup would fund two races worth $500,000 each, which would bring the total purse structure for the two-day program to $25-million.
Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer
