Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint to Offer $1 Million Bonus

The Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint Stakes (G3T) is already America's most lucrative race for sprinters on grass outside of the Breeders' Cup championship races. Now its winner could earn an additional $1 million.

The winner of the $700,000 event will earn that lucrative bonus if he/she goes on to capture Keeneland's $200,000 Woodford Stakes Presented by Keeneland Select (G2T) and the $1 million Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint (G1T).

The Sept. 7 Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint will be the first Breeders' Cup Challenge race ever held at Kentucky Downs, the distinctive all-grass track on the Tennessee border. The winner will earn an automatic entry fees-paid berth in the Nov. 2 Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint at Santa Anita Park as part of the Challenge program. An added benefit is the $10,000 travel stipend if the winner is an American horse based outside of California, or $40,000 for a European runner. 

Kentucky Downs runs Aug. 31 and Sept. 5, 7, 8, and 12. The 2019 session will be the first under the new ownership partnership headed by prominent horseman and entrepreneur Ron Winchell and well-known gaming and investment-banking executive Marc Falcone.

"The bonus was Ron Winchell's idea," said Ted Nicholson, Kentucky Downs' senior vice president and general manager. "Getting our first Breeders' Cup 'Win and You're In' race is a very big deal. Ron wanted Kentucky Downs to do something to show how important this race is to us and our appreciation for being selected. The bonus also emphasizes and promotes Kentucky racing overall by tying it into Keeneland's Oct. 5 Woodford and brings international attention to horse racing's fastest growing and exciting division—turf sprinters."

"We congratulate Kentucky Downs and its management team on the newly created $1 million bonus for a three-race sweep," said Dora Delgado, Breeders' Cup executive vice president of racing and nominations. "This is a further incentive for horsemen seeking an automatic berth into the $1 million Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint by winning the Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint."

The six-furlong Kentucky Downs Turf Sprint offers a base purse of $500,000, by itself the most lucrative prep for the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint in America or Europe. Horses foaled in the commonwealth and sired by a Kentucky stallion—the majority of horses running—are eligible for another $200,000 in purse money through the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund.

The June 8 Jaipur Invitational Stakes (G1T) at Belmont Park, won by World of Trouble, is the only other Breeders' Cup Challenge race in America for the turf sprint division. There also are four "Win and You're In" races for the division in Europe and another in Japan.