breeders cup world thoroughbred championships

The Breeders' Cup World Championships is an annual series of Grade I thoroughbred horse races operated by Breeders' Cup Limited, a company formed in 1982. From its inception in 1984 through 2006, it was a single-day event; starting in 2007, it expanded to two days. The location changes each year. All sites have been in the United States, except in 1996, when the races were at the Woodbine Racetrack in Canada.
The event was created as a year-end championship for North American thoroughbred racing, and also attracts top horses from other parts of the world, especially Europe. The Breeders' Cup was founded in 1982 by John R. Gaines, a leading thoroughbred owner and breeder. Before the Breeders' Cup expanded to two days, it was generally considered to be the richest day in sports. As of 2008, the second day of the Breeders' Cup is the second-richest. In 2008, a total of $17 million will be awarded on that day, down from $20 million in 2007 (two races were moved from Day 2 to Day 1). The richest single day in sports is now another Thoroughbred racing event, Dubai World Cup Night. It features six races with a combined purse of $21 million in 2008. In the past, those who considered poker a sport could argue that the final table of the World Series of Poker was the richest day in sports; the highest payout ever at the final table was $38 million in 2006. However, a change to the format of the final table in 2008 means that the final day of the WSOP is now behind both Dubai World Cup Night and Day 2 of the Breeders' Cup.
With the addition of three new races for 2008, a total of $25.5 million will be awarded over the two days, up from $23 million in 2007.
The Breeders' Cup is currently searching for a title sponsorA maximum of 14 starters are allowed in each of the 14 Breeders' Cup Championships races with the exception of the Dirt Mile, Juvenile Fillies Turf and Juvenile Turf which will each be limited to 12 starters. Breeders' Cup Limited has adopted a field selection system to select runners in the event fields are oversubscribed. This system ranks horses in order of preference based upon (1) performance in Breeders' Cup Challenge Races, (2) a point system, and (3) the judgment of a panel of racing experts. The field selection system will be implemented as necessary following the taking of pre-entries on October 14, 2008, to officially rank the oversubscribed fields. The Racing Directors/Secretaries Panel (the “Panel”) will rank all the horses pre-entered in the oversubscribed races as described below. After pre-entry, any vacancies in the fields will be filled by horses in order of panel preference.
Through 2006, there were eight races on the Breeders' Cup card, all classified as Grade I races. In 2007, three races — Dirt Mile, Filly and Mare Sprint, and Juvenile Turf — were added, all of them run the Friday before the remaining eight races. Three more new races — a Turf Sprint, Juvenile Filly Turf and Marathon — were also added for 2008.[2]
The order of the races on the card has changed many times throughout the event's history, but the Turf and Classic are traditionally the last two races. Starting in 2008, Day 1 of the event will be dedicated to races for fillies and mares, with Day 2 featuring all other racesThe new races cannot be considered graded stakes in 2007, 2008, or 2009.[3] The American Graded Stakes Committee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, the body that controls grading of North American stakes races, requires that a race be run under the same conditions for at least two years before it can be graded.
The 2007 Dirt Mile was run over 1 mile and 70 yards, while the 2007 Filly & Mare Sprint was run over six furlongs. These distances were required because of the configuration of the dirt track at the 2007 Breeders' Cup site of Monmouth Park.
The 2008 Turf Sprint will be contested on Santa Anita Park's signature El Camino Real “downhill” turf course, with a maximum of 14 starters. In future years, the distance will depend on track configurations.[4]
Beginning in 2007, a new qualifying process took effect, in which the winners of certain races earned automatic entry to the event in their respective divisions.
Belmont Park is a major thoroughbred horse-racing facility located in the hamlet of Elmont, New York in Nassau County, Long Island in the Town of Hempstead. Its mile-and-a-half (2.4 km) main track is the largest dirt course in Thoroughbred racing. It first opened May 4, 1905.
It is world-famous as the home of the Belmont Stakes, the third leg of the Triple Crown.
Belmont is known as The Championship Track because most every major champion in racing history since the early 20th century has competed on the racecourse -- including each of the 11 Triple Crown winners.
In addition to its importance to racing, "Beautiful Belmont Park" is often called one of the best-landscaped venues in American sports -- especially because of the stately backyard park behind the grandstand, which includes the paddock in which the horses are saddled before each race. The backyard and backstretch are notable for their huge, attractive trees and landscaping, and the infield is dominated by two picturesque lakes.
With some of the elegant aura of its sister track, Saratoga Race Course, in a suburban setting, Belmont is known as one of the most gorgeous and accommodating racecourses in the world. Along with Saratoga, Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Churchill Downs in Louisville, and Del Mar and Santa Anita racecourses in California, Belmont is considered one of the elite racetracks in the sport.
Belmont Park is operated by the non-profit New York Racing Association, as are Aqueduct and Saratoga Race Course. The group was formed in 1955 as the Greater New York Association to assume the assets of the individual associations that ran Belmont, Aqueduct, Saratoga and the now-defunct old Jamaica Racetrack (The Rochdale Village housing development now occupies the site of Jamaica).
In May 2007, reports surfaced indicating that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was considering closing Aqueduct Racetrack which is four miles west of Belmont in Ozone Park, New York and turning Belmont into a nearly year round race track when the New York Racing Association lease for all three of New York State's tracks expires at the end of 2007.
According to the plans being discussed, Belmont's stands would be heated, additional barns built for Aqueduct's 400 horses, and the track being modified to accommodate winter racing. In addition, video lottery machines would be introduced. A new entity would operate Belmont from fall to spring while the New York Racing Association would operate Saratoga Race Course in the summerThe Belmont Stakes was named after financier and sportsman August Belmont, Sr., who helped fund the race, and most sources say the racetrack itself was also named for him. Other sources say Belmont Park was named in honor of his son -- August Belmont II, a key member of the Westchester Racing Association, which established the racecourse.
The race was first run in 1867 at Jerome Park Racetrack in the Bronx. In 1937, the wrought iron gates that bore an illustration of that first Belmont Stakes were donated to the track by August Belmont II's sole surviving son, Perry Belmont. The gates are now on the fourth floor of Belmont Park's clubhouse.
The Belmont Stakes races have been run at Belmont Park since 1905, with the exceptions of 1911-12, when racing was outlawed in New York State; and the 1963-67 editions, held at Aqueduct while the grandstands at Belmont Park were reconstructed. The first post parade in the U.S. was at the 14th Belmont, in 1880.
Secretariat's finishing time in his 1973 Belmont victory (2 minutes, 24 seconds) set a world record for 1½ miles (2.414 km) on dirt, a world record which still stands. The 31-length victory clinched the first Triple Crown in 25 years, dating back to Citation in 1948. A statue of Secretariat is in the center of the Belmont paddock.
Another Belmont Stakes achievement is recognized by the "Woody's Corner" display in the first-floor clubhouse lobby, commemorating the five consecutive Belmont Stakes winners trained by the legendary Woody Stephens from 1982-86.
Other memorable performances in Belmont Park history include the opening of the track in 1905 with the famous dead heat between Sysonby and Race King in the Met Cap. In 1923, Belmont Park was host to an international duel between the American and English champions: Zev, winner of the Kentucky Derby, against Papyrus, winner of the Epsom Derby. Zev won by five lengths in front of the biggest crowd for a match race in a hundred years.
Belmont Park was the site of the tragedy-marred victory of Foolish Pleasure over champion filly Ruffian in a 1975 match race. Ruffian broke down during the race and had to be euthanized; she is buried near the finish line in the infield at Belmont Park, her nose pointed towards the finish pole.
The racetrack was also the site of Affirmed's epic stretch duel with Alydar in the 1978 Belmont Stakes, a victory that gave Affirmed the Triple Crown; and Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew's defeat of Affirmed in the Marlboro Cup in September of that same year. The Marlboro, a key event of the Fall Championship meets in the 1970s and 1980s, included a dramatic come-from-behind win by Forego in the 1976 installment