New juvenile turf race to be added to Breeders’ Cup meeting

– Breeders’ Cup has added a race to its official roster, the Juvenile Turf Sprint, and will increase the purse of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint to $2 million, the organisation announced on Monday.

The Turf Sprint, which has been run as an undercard race during the two-day Breeders’ Cup event in the past several years, will be run over 1100m on the turf

Louisville, Kentucky

and be open to two-year-olds.

The race will have a $1 million purse and now be considered the 14th official Breeders’ Cup race of the two-day event, which will be held this year at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky on 2 and 3 November.

Though no announcement was made as to whether the new race would be held on Friday or Saturday, traditionally the turf races for two-year-olds are held Friday and the juvenile dirt races are on Saturday.

Dora Delgado, the Breeders’ Cup’s senior vice president of racing and nominations, said Breeders’ Cup decided to add the race because of a history of oversubscribed fields for both the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Fillies, which were added to the official roster in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

Fields in those races are limited to 14 horses.

“Each year, the Juvenile Turf and the Juvenile Fillies Turf are oversubscribed,” she said.

“We feel that the Juvenile Turf Sprint will be a popular draw among horsemen from North America and overseas stables and will generate interest among North American racetracks to card races in this division.”

The $500,000 boost to the Sprint purse restores the race to a $2 million purse. The Sprint had a purse of $2 million from 2006 to 2010, but was cut to $1.5 million in 2011.

Breeders’ Cup also said it would also add $1 million in purses to undercard events over the two days. –