ABQ Downs’ closing weekend features big purse total
The distribution of $1,595,597 will be a track record
Albuquerque Downs will close its 2018 thoroughbred and quarter horse racing season this weekend with a track-record purse distribution of $1,595,597 on Saturday and Sunday.
The Downs’ closing weekend action consists of 20 races, 10 on Saturday and 10 on Sunday. There will be six stakes races, one on Saturday (first post time 6:05 p.m.) and five on Sunday (first post 1:30). Five of this weekend’s stakes will be for quarter horses, topped by Sunday’s 440-yard, $300,000 Albuquerque Fall Quarter Horse Championship, which achieved Grade 1 status for the first time this year and has drawn two-time defending American Quarter Horse Association world champion Jessies First Down. The winner of this race will earn a berth in the 440-yard, $350,000 Championship at Sunland Park on Dec. 30.
This year’s closing-weekend purse total beats by 6 percent the previous record of $1,507,730 for 21 races during last year’s closing weekend, and it tops by 26 percent the $1,266,609 for 22 races in 2016. Second-year racing secretary Gerald Richards has put together two programs that should be popular with handicappers, as a total of 194 horses (excluding also-eligible entries) have been entered in the 20 races, meaning that (before any late scratches) field sizes will average 9.7 horses per race, slightly below last year’s closing-weekend average of 9.9 but well above the national average.
The traditional final race of The Downs’ season, the 1 13/16-mile, $25,000 Con Jackson Claiming Stakes, is New Mexico’s longest thoroughbred race and one of the longest in North America.
Saturday’s penultimate card at The Downs is topped by the 73rd running of the New Mexico State Fair Futurity for state-bred 2-year-old quarter horses, one of the sport’s oldest continuously run stakes races. The State Fair Futurity was first contested in 1946.
Among the expected highlights of the stakes races:
NEW MEXICO STATE FAIR
FUTURITY: Ten state-bred 2-yearolds, topped by fastest qualifier Winerette, are entered, which on Saturday will offer a stakesrecord purse of $335,549.
NEW MEXICO STATE FAIR THOROUGHBRED FUTURITY: A full field of a dozen state-bred 2-year-old thoroughbreds have been entered in this 6-furlong Sunday race, the lone thoroughbred stakes of the weekend.
LA FIESTA QUARTER HORSE DERBY: A pollitical Brooke, a Grade 1-winning daughter of 2010 world champion A pollitical Jess owned by Samantha Leyba and Lilly Leyba, will make her second start of the season in this Sunday race.
LA FIESTA QUARTER HORSE FUTURITY: The fastest qualifier for this Sunday race, Faster Then
U, has won both of his outs during the current Albuquerque meet, including a 350-yard, $16,000 maiden-special-weight dash on July 29.
NEW MEXICO STATE FAIR QUARTER HORSE DERBY: Owner/trainer Fred Danley of Anthony, a mainstay on the state’s racing circuit since he began his training career in 1976, will send out two contenders in this Sunday race, including fastest qualifier Jessa Diva.
ALBUQUERQUE FALL QUARTER HORSE CHAMPIONSHIP: Jessies First Down, the American Quarter Horse Association world champion the past two seasons and the winner of this race last year, returns to defend his crown on Sunday. The purse for the 440yard race is $300,000.