Tag: Saratoga Derby Invitational

Summer at Saratoga features 77 stakes races worth $22.6 million over 40 days. (Image: Chelsea Durand)

Saratoga Offers Up 19 Grade 1 Stakes, Increased $22.6 Million Purse

- 3 min read

Along with a purse boost of $1.1 million from 2021, the New York Racing Association announced Saratoga Race Course’s 2022 stakes schedule Tuesday. The schedule features 77 stakes spread over the 40-day meet, where horsemen and women will race for $22.6 million in purses. Headlining that stakes schedule as always is the […]

Flashiest and Abel Cedillo rallied from sixth entering the stretch to win the Oceanside Stakes on Del Mar's July 16 opening-day card. He is one of the favorites in Saturday's Grade 2 Del Mar Derby. (Image: Benoit Photo)

Flashiest Wants to Go Forward in his Back-Up Race

- 3 min read

Trainer Leonard Powell’s comments about Flashiest entering a deep Del Mar Derby field is more an indictment on Flashiest’s last race than an indictment on Saturday’s Grade 2 Del Mar Derby. “The Saratoga trip didn’t work out as we had planned, definitely not,” Powell told Del Mar. “Maybe if he […]

Luis Saez and Bella Sofia set the curve in the Test Stakes, winning the Grade 1 by 4 1/4 lengths on a record-handle Whitney Day card at Saratoga. (Image: Coglianese Photos)

Whitney Day Produces Record Handle, Another Knicks Go Romp

- 3 min read

Knicks Go, Bella Sofia and State of Rest enjoyed Grade 1 victories on Saratoga’s Whitney Day card. And the New York Racing Association enjoyed a record, all-sources handle for that Whitney Day card. That record all-sources handle came in at $36,820,234, surpassing last year’s take of $35,796,435 that came without […]

Bolshoi Ballet put on a textbook stretch drive to win the Belmont Derby. The Irish colt tries for the second leg of NYRA's Turf Triple series Saturday in the Grade 1 Saratoga Derby. (Image: Janet Garaguso/Coglianese Photos)

Will Bolshoi Ballet Allow O’Brien to say ‘Eight is Enough’ at Saratoga?

- 3 min read

Bolshoi Ballet will attempt to rectify an oversight that’s as mystifying as it is counterintuitive by becoming Aidan O’Brien’s first winning horse at Saratoga. It defies logic that O’Brien, Europe’s most decorated trainer and one of the best horsemen in the world, has never sent a horse to the Spa’s […]

Saratoga's 40-day 2021 meet features 76 stakes races. The upstate New York track runs Wednesday-Sunday most weeks during the summer. (Image: NYRA)

Saratoga Adds Two Grade 1s to Stakes-Loaded 2021 Meet

- 3 min read

The tradition-rich Saratoga Race Course meet just picked up two more tradition-rich races for its 40-day summer meet, which the New York Racing Association announced Friday. The $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup and the $600,000 Flower Bowl move from Belmont Park to the Spa, where they will anchor Saratoga’s […]

North Dakota's upset victory in the Red Smith Handicap came in a Grade 3 race. The Red Smith was one of three races promoted to Grade 2 status for 2021. (Image: Coglianese Photo)

American Graded Stakes Committee Shuffles the Deck for 2021

- 3 min read

One of the most underrated, but awaited, horseracing activities took place over the weekend when the American Graded Stakes Committee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association revealed its listing of US Graded and Listed Stakes Races for 2021. This annual event came with a twist this year, courtesy of […]