Juddmonte to Sponsor Middle Park, Royal Lodge
Description:
Khalid Abdullah's Juddmonte Farms has signed a three-year deal to sponsor the Middle Park Stakes (Eng-I) and the Royal Lodge Stakes (Eng-II), both for 2-year-olds at Newmarket.
Juddmonte is one of the world's leading breeders with over 100 individual homebred group I or grade I winners.
Both races are to run at the Rowley Mile course on the final day of the Cambridgeshire meeting, Saturday, Sept. 26.
The Juddmonte Middle Park Stakes, a six-furlong £180,000 contest for colts, has been run every year since its inception in 1866 and will be celebrating its 150th running this year. Recent winners include two subsequent Darley July Cup (Eng-I)-winning champion sprinters, the Juddmonte-bred Oasis Dream (in 2002) and Dream Ahead (in 2010).
Juddmonte already has a long association with the one mile £100,000 Royal Lodge Stakes for colts and geldings, which was won in 2012 by the greatest of all Juddmonte horses, undefeated champion Frankel.
Oasis Dream and Frankel are now both part of Juddmonte's stallion roster at Banstead Manor Stud, near Cheveley, less than five miles away from the Rowley Mile racecourse.
"Juddmonte Farms is delighted to sponsor one of the top group 1 2-year-old races in Europe with the history of the Middle Park, especially as Prince Khalid has won it twice with successful sires Known Fact and Oasis Dream, said Douglas Erskine Crum, CEO of Juddmonte Group, in a statement. "Running this race alongside the Royal Lodge, which was won by Frankel, is a great attraction as well. With Frankel and Bated Breath's first 2-year-olds hitting the track next year it makes our sponsorship on this day all the more exciting."