Japan's Victoria Mile Becomes Breeders' Cup Qualifier

Breeders' Cup, in conjunction with the Japan Racing Association, announced May 8 that the $2.1 million Victoria Mile Stakes (G1), a mile turf race for older fillies and mares May 17 at Tokyo Racecourse, will be a new race in the 2020 Challenge Series.

The Breeders' Cup Challenge is a series of stakes races whose winners receive automatic starting positions and fees paid into a corresponding race of the Breeders' Cup World Championships, which will be held at Keeneland in Lexington Nov. 6-7.

The Victoria Mile winner will qualify for the $2 million Maker's Mark Breeders' Cup Filly and Mare Turf (G1T), which will be run at 1 3/16 miles on the Keeneland turf course. Breeders' Cup also will provide a minimum travel allowance of $40,000 for all starters based outside North America.

If not Breeders' Cup eligible, the Challenge winner must be nominated to the Breeders' Cup program by the pre-entry deadline of Oct. 26 to receive the rewards.

"We greatly thank the JRA for their partnership as we look to strengthen the roster of automatic qualifiers in Japan this year," said Dora Delgado, the Breeders' Cup executive vice president and chief racing officer. "Adding the Victoria Mile into the 2020 Breeders' Cup Challenge Series provides a new opportunity to participate on racing's greatest stage for owners and trainers in Japan."

"We are quite honored to have one of our grade 1 races to be added to the 2020 Breeders' Cup Challenge Series. Also, we greatly appreciate that Breeders' Cup highly values the quality of our races and horses," said Masayuki Goto, the president and CEO of the Japan Racing Association. "I firmly believe the renewed format of the series will encourage more participation from our horses in one of the most prestigious events of the entire global racing calendar."

Six grade/group 1 winners are nominated to the Victoria Mile, including Almond Eye, who won last year's Dubai Turf Sponsored by DP World (G1) at Meydan and the Tenno Sho (Autumn, G1) at Tokyo. She was the 2018 Japanese Horse of the Year.

The Victoria Mile will be the second of four Breeders' Cup Challenge races to be held in Japan this year. On Feb. 23, Capital System's 6-year-old Mozu Ascot won the February Stakes (G1) at Tokyo and earned the first automatic berth into the $7 million Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1). The two other Breeders' Cup Challenge Series races to be run in Japan will be the Yasuda Kinen Stakes (G1) at Tokyo on June 7 for an automatic berth into the TVG Breeders' Cup Mile (G1T), and the Takarazuka Kinen Stakes (G1) at Hanshin Racecourse on June 28, with the winner gaining a free berth into the Longines Breeders' Cup Turf (G1T). 

The Victoria Mile replaces the Sprinters Stakes (G1), which had been an automatic qualifying race at Nakayama for the Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) since 2016.

With the racing schedules across much of the world in flux because of COVID-19, a complete Challenge Series schedule is not listed on the Breeders' Cup website. Some tracks have begun to promote Breeders' Cup Challenge Series races in recently released condition books, such as Churchill Downs, which listed the $500,000 Stephen Foster Stakes (G2) and $200,000 Fleur de Lis Stakes (G2), both June 27, as qualifiers for the Classic and Longines Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1), respectively.

The $300,000 Shoemaker Mile Stakes (G1T), scheduled for May 25 at Santa Anita Park if that track receives clearance to resume racing from its local health department, is also listed as a Challenge Series race in the track's current stakes schedule, offering a berth into the Mile.