Page 14 - New Mexico Horse Breeder Summer 2018

THE NEWS
Downs At Albuquerque Releases $2.6-Million Stakes
Schedule For Its 55-Date Season
The Albuquerque Fall Championship is granted Grade 1 status and will offer a stakes-record $300,000 purse
The Downs at Albuquerque has released its track-record 23-race, $2.602-million stakes schedule for its 2018 Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse meet, which opens June 29.
Of The Downs 23 stakes races, 15 will be for Thoroughbreds and eight will be for Quarter Horses. The track’s Thoroughbred stakes will
be worth an estimated $1.08 million, and its Quarter Horse stakes will be worth an estimated $1.4 million.
The highlight of the 55-date season, the 440-yard Albuquerque Fall Quarter Horse Championship, Presented by South Point Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, will be one of five stakes offered on closing day, Sept. 23. In addition to being granted Grade 1 status by the American Quarter Horse Association, the race will offer a stakes-record $300,000 purse.
The Albuquerque Fall Championship
has fast become one of the sport’s most significant stakes races since its first running in 2015, which was won by then-reigning World Champion JRC Callas First. Last year’s Fall Championship was won by Jessies First Down, the sport’s World Champion in 2016 and 2017.
“Getting our Fall Quarter Horse Championship to Grade 1 status has been one of our main objectives since it started three years ago,” said Albuquerque Downs president of racing Don Cook. “The fact that it has achieved Grade 1 status in just its fourth year shows
that it has attracted quality horses and has been supported by horsemen throughout the country. “We’ve attracted many of the best racing
Quarter Horses in the world for this race,” he added. “We’re very pleased about that.”
Other examples of Grade 1 Quarter Horse races are the historically significant 440-yard, $3-million All American Futurity-G1 at Ruidoso Downs in New Mexico, and the 440-yard, $600,000 Champion of Champions-G1 at Los Alamitos Racecourse in California. An example of a Grade 1 Thoroughbred race is the 1 1/4- mile, $2-million Kentucky Derby-G1, the first leg of Thoroughbred racing’s Triple Crown.
The track’s richest race for any breed, the 73rd running of the 400-yard, $400,000 New Mexico State Fair Quarter Horse Futurity-
RG3, will be one of two stakes contested on the penultimate day of the meet, Sept. 22. The New Mexico State Fair Futurity began with its first running in 1946, when Champion Pelican earned the winner’s share of the purse, and it is one of the oldest Quarter Horse stakes in the country. Past winners include Champions Maddon’s Bright Eyes (1948), Black Easter Bunny (’51), Now I Know (’95) and First Moonflash (2007).
In addition, The Downs at Albuquerque will play host to the AQHA’s Bank of America Racing Challenge program. The winner of
the 870-yard, $52,000-estimated AQHA Albuquerque Distance Challenge-G3 on July 29 will earn a starting berth in the November
17, $105,000 AQHA Distance Challenge Championship-G1 at historic Los Alamitos Racecourse near Los Angeles, California.
The Downs’ signature Thoroughbred stakes race, the 1 1/8-mile, $200,000 Downs at Albuquerque Handicap, will be run on Aug. 4. Other prominent Thoroughbred stakes include the 6-furlong, $200,000-est. New Mexico State Fair Thoroughbred Futurity-R for state-bred 2-year-olds on Sept. 23.
New to The Downs’ Thoroughbred stakes schedule is a three-race “marathon series” for horses entered for a $6,250 claiming price, starting with the 1-mile, $20,000 Downs at Albuquerque Marathon Stakes on July 28.
The series will continue with the 1 1/16-mile, $20,000 Billy Powell Claiming Stakes on Aug. 18 and end with the longest horse race in New Mexico, the 1 13/16-mile, $25,000 Con Jackson Claiming Stakes on closing day, Sept. 23.
Live racing will be offered at The Downs on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, starting
at 6:05 p.m. (MDT), and Sundays, starting at 1:30. The schedule will change during the New Mexico State Fair portion of the meet in Sept.
For more information, visit www.abqdowns. com and click on the “Racing” link at the top of the homepage.
CONTACT:
Don Cook, Director of Racing -- (505) 400-5699 or donee@abqdowns.com
12 New Mexico Horse Breeder