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Breeders’ Cup Announces Challenge Series Races for September and October

Led by the 145th GI Preakness S., the G1 Irish Champion S. and G1 Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, a total of 44 automatic berths into the 37th Breeders’ Cup World Championships will be up for grabs over the next two months as Breeders’ Cup Ltd. released its schedule of Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series races for September and October.

The Breeders’ Cup Challenge, now in its 14th year, is an international series of stakes races whose winners receive automatic starting positions and fees paid for a corresponding race in the Breeders’ Cup World Championships, which is scheduled to be held Nov. 6-7 at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky.

“Win and You’re In” qualifiers will be contested in Brazil, Canada, England, Ireland, France and the U.S. over the September-October time frame, including 27 Grade or Group 1 stakes.

Among the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series racing highlights are:

Three “Win and You’re In” automatic qualifiers for the $7-million GI Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic, featuring the Preakness at Pimlico Oct. 3, the first Triple Crown race to be in the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series. Bookended around the Preakness are the GI Awesome Again S. Sept. 26 at Santa Anita Park and the GI Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park Oct. 10.

The complete Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series schedule can be accessed here.

As part of the enhanced benefits to horsemen competing in the series, Breeders’ Cup will pay the entry fees and guarantee a starting position in a corresponding Championships race for winners of all Challenge races. The Challenge winner must be nominated to the Breeders’ Cup program by the Championships’ pre-entry deadline of Oct. 26 to receive the rewards, and those rewards must be used in the year they are earned.

Breeders’ Cup also will provide a $10,000 travel allowance for starters within North America that are stabled outside of Kentucky, and a $40,000 travel stipend to the connections of all Championship starters from outside of North America.

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Preakness Stakes To Offer Automatic Starting Position In Breeders’ Cup Classic

Officials of the Breeders' Cup and The Stronach Group today announced that the winner of the 145th Preakness Stakes (G1) for 3-year-olds on Oct. 3 at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore will earn an automatic starting position into the Longines Breeders' Cup Classic (G1). The announcement marks the first time that a Triple Crown race will be a part of the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series.

The Breeders' Cup Challenge is an international series of stakes races whose winners receive automatic starting positions and fees paid into corresponding races of the Breeders' Cup World Championships, scheduled to be held this year on Nov. 6-7 at Keeneland Race Course in Lexington, Ky. The $7 million Longines Breeders' Cup Classic, contested at 1 ¼ miles, will be run on Saturday, Nov. 7.

Both the Preakness, run at 1 3/16 miles, and the Longines Breeders' Cup Classic, will be broadcast live on NBC.

“We are delighted to join The Stronach Group and the Maryland Jockey Club in welcoming the Preakness to this year's Breeders' Cup Challenge Series, and that we will be able to provide the winning connections with an added incentive to run in the Longines Breeders' Cup Classic,” said Drew Fleming, Breeders' Cup President and CEO. “As a foundation race of the Triple Crown, and the premier event in the proud history of Maryland racing, we look forward to working together with The Stronach Group, and our partners at NBC Sports, to promote an exciting fall season for Thoroughbred racing.”

“The events of 2020 have for all of us been about responding to unforeseen challenges and making the best of them,” said Craig Fravel, Chief Executive Officer, Racing Operations, 1/ST. “Many of those challenges including the changes to the Triple Crown have been unwelcome but becoming part of the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series is most welcome and a fitting finale to the three-year-old season as the horses and their connections make their way to Baltimore for the last leg of the Triple Crown. We look forward to hosting the best of America's three-year-old horses on October 3 at the Preakness and to enjoying their success thereafter in the Breeders' Cup Classic.”

“With terrific racing ahead, we're excited that the two biggest events of the fall months will be further connected with the Preakness Stakes winner earning a coveted berth in the Breeders' Cup Classic,” said Jon Miller, President of Programming for NBC and NBCSN.

Due to scheduling changes caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the Preakness date was shifted from May 16 to Oct. 3, and will be run as the third jewel of the 2020 Triple Crown. This year's Triple Crown began on June 20 with the Belmont Stakes (G1), won by Tiz the Law, at Belmont Park, and will be followed by the Kentucky Derby (G1), which will be run on Sept. 5 at Churchill Downs.

Four Preakness winners have won the Longines Breeders' Cup Classic. In 2015, American Pharoah swept the Triple Crown and the Breeders' Cup Classic at Keeneland to become racing's first “Grand Slam” winner. Preakness winners Sunday Silence (1989), Alysheba (1987) and Curlin (2007) also won the Classic. Alysheba captured the Classic in 1988.

As part of the benefits of the Challenge series, the Breeders' Cup will pay the $150,000 in entry fees for the Preakness winner to start in the Longines Breeders' Cup Classic, which is limited to 14 starters. Breeders' Cup also will provide a travel allowance of $10,000 for all North American starters based outside of Kentucky to compete in the World Championships. The Preakness winner must already be nominated to the Breeders' Cup program or it must be nominated by the Championships' pre-entry deadline of Oct. 26 to receive the rewards.

There are six horses who have thus far earned automatic starting positions into this year's Longines Breeders' Cup Classic through the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series: Mozu Ascot, winner of the February Stakes (G1) at Tokyo Racecourse on Feb. 23; Tom's d'Etat, who took the Stephen Foster Stakes (G2) at Churchill Downs on June 27; Authentic, winner of the TVG.com Haskell Stakes (G1) at Monmouth Park on July 18; Improbable, who won the Whitney (G1) at Saratoga Race Course on Aug. 1; Ghaiyyath (IRE), winner of the Juddmonte International Stakes (G1) at York on Aug. 19 in Great Britain and Maximum Security, who won the TVG Pacific Classic (G1) at Del Mar on Aug. 22.

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Cox Hoping To Send Warrior’s Charge From Iselin To Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile

Trainer Brad Cox is doing his best to focus solely on Saturday's $200,000 Grade 3 Philip H. Iselin Stakes at Monmouth Park for Warrior's Charge, but it's not always easy when the ultimate goal – the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile – is this close.

Warrior's Charge, fourth in the Grade 1 Met Mile in his last start and a close-up fourth in the Preakness a year ago, heads a compact field of six for the 85th edition of the Iselin, the feature on a 14-race card.

“Our goal, our dream I guess you could call it, is the Breeders' Cup (Dirt) Mile (Nov. 7 at Keeneland),” said Cox. “I don't know if this would be his last race for that. We probably have some options.

“But I'm a one race at a time guy. I want to get through Saturday before we pick out our next couple of races. The goal is definitely to get this horse to the Breeders' Cup (Dirt) Mile and I feel like Monmouth Park's course, the way it plays, the mile and a sixteenth around two turns, would be something he will like. So we'll see.”

A 4-year-old Florida-bred son of Munnings-Battling Brook by Broken Vow, Warrior's Charge launched his 2020 campaign with a win in the Grade 3 Razorback at Oaklawn on Feb. 17. He followed that by finishing second in the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap before being beaten just two lengths in the Met Mile at Belmont Park on July 4 in his last start.

Warrior's Charge sports a 4-1-3 from 10 career starts with earnings of $715,310.

“I thought he ran huge,” Cox said of the Met Mile. “I thought it was a big effort. He ran against some Grade 1 horses and he showed he can compete. I was very pleased with the effort and he bounced out of it in good shape.

“He has definitely matured. I think he has shown in his races this year that he has stepped up and run big against some of the best horses in the country.”

The speedy Warrior's Charge looks the most likely candidate on paper to control the pace with his front-running style, though the Grant Forster-trained Pirate's Punch is also a speedy type.

“Obviously we have a great jock for Monmouth Park in Paco Lopez,” said Cox. “So I feel comfortable with the set up. If all goes well and he gets a good, clean trip he will definitely be a factor.

“Bal Harbour is obviously a nice horse. Pirate's Punch is a nice horse as well. It's not a big field but it's a very competitive race. It's a group of horses that are very well matched.”

Bal Harbour, who has competed in graded stakes company his last eight starts, is trained by Gregg Sacco, who also supplemented multiple Grade 1 winner Mind Control to the race. Sacco said a decision on whether Mind Control will go in the Iselin Stakes will be made on Friday. The 4-year-old colt has tried two turns just once in his 14-race career, finishing seventh in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile in 2018.

“He's ready if that's the direction the owners want to go,” Sacco said.

Mind Control last raced in the Grade 1 Vanderbilt at six furlongs at Saratoga on July 25, finishing third.

Warrior's Charge, owned by Ten Strike Racing and Madaket Stables, will ship to Monmouth Park from Churchill Downs on Friday morning, Cox said, with the trainer's 21-year-old son Bryson handling the horse when he arrives in New Jersey.

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COVID-19 ‘Just Wiped Out Everything’: Parx Cancels Pennsylvania Derby, Cotillion

Parx Racing in Bensalem, Pa. will not host the Grade 1 Pennsylvania Derby or Grade 1 Cotillion in 2020, according to the Thoroughbred Daily News. Both $1 million races, originally scheduled for Sept. 26, are victims of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“We will not be running any open stakes races this year,” racing secretary David Osojnak told the TDN. “We will be going on hiatus. The virus, the plague, just wiped out everything. We think we will be able to come back stronger in 2021.”

The late September date is an issue this year because Churchill Downs postponed the Kentucky Derby to Sept. 5 and the Preakness was rescheduled for Oct. 3. That left Parx little chance of attracting top 3-year-olds for its premier stakes races.

Instead, Osojnak reallocated the purse money from the Pennsylvania Derby and Cotillion to overnight purses, allowing him to keep them near levels from 2019 until casino revenue starts flowing again.

Read more at the Thoroughbred Daily News.

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