Keeneland announces Fall Meet stakes

The 17-day fall meet begins October 3 (Keeneland Photo) Keeneland will offer 17 stakes worth a total of $4.925 million during its 2014 Fall Meet from October 3-25. The 17-day season will award approximately $600,000 in average daily purses as one of the richest racing programs in North America, while Keeneland debuts a state-of-the-art dirt surface on the main track and features races for horses headed to the Breeders’ Cup World Championships. This fall, prominent Thoroughbred operations Claiborne Farm, Dixiana Farm and Lane’s End Farm for the first time will sponsor the Breeders’ Futurity, Bourbon and Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup, respectively. Purses for these stakes will increase by $100,000 each. Now worth $500,000, the Breeders’ Futurity is a 1 1/16-mile race for two-year-olds on October. 4. The $250,000 Bourbon, for two-year-olds racing 1 1/16 miles on turf, will be run October 5. The $500,000 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup, an internationally renowned invitational for three-year-old fillies at 1 1/8 miles on the turf, is scheduled for October 11.

The Fall Meet opens with the prestigious Fall Stars Weekend, which presents
nine graded stakes worth $3.35 million over three days. Five of those races are
Grade 1 events: the $400,000 Alcibiades, for two-year-old fillies at 1 1/16
miles on October 3; the $750,000 Shadwell Turf Mile, for three-year-olds and up,
the $500,000 Breeders’ Futurity and the $400,000 First Lady, for fillies and
mares at mile on turf, all on October 4; and the $500,000 Spinster, for older
fillies and mares at 1 1/8 miles, on October 5.

Eight Keeneland stakes are part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge series of
automatic qualifying races for the Breeders’ Cup World Championships to be held
October 31-November 1 at Santa Anita.

Seven of those Breeders’ Cup Challenge stakes highlight Fall Stars Weekend:
Darley Alcibiades (a Challenge race for the Juvenile Fillies) and Phoenix
(Sprint) on October 3; Shadwell Turf Mile (Mile), Breeders’ Futurity (Juvenile)
and Thoroughbred Club of America (Filly and Mare Sprint) on October 4; and
Spinster (Distaff) and Bourbon (Juvenile Turf) on October 5.

The eighth Breeders’ Cup Challenge race is the Jessamine on October 8. The
race awards the winner a berth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf.

The entire Fall Meet stakes schedule can be viewed

here.

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