NEW BC races will NOT be G1!!!???
 

See linked BH article.
http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=38485

Ungraded million dollar championship races, interesting...

Don't all new stakes races have to be run three times before they're graded?

American Oaks at Hollywood was run thrice before it was given a G1. The Virginia Derby at Colonial has attracted a top flight field almost every year and goes for 1 mil yet is a G2.

NT

Yes, but the BC races were G1 from the start. When they added the F/M Turf, it was a G1 from the get go. It seems odd to run a raced with the word "Championship" in the title but that is ungraded.

Maybe the graded stakes committee would be nauseated putting a Grade I on a race going a mile and 70 yards.

NT

"All 10 members of the graded stakes committee attended the meeting either in person or via telephone, and the decision to reject grade I status was unanimous for all three races. "


This is the final paragraph. It sounds like the Committee as issued a pretty strong rebuke to the Breeders' Cup regarding it's expansion plans. I must say that w/ the exception of possibly a F/M Sprint, I agree. In fact, I agree with the editorial on the main page of Derby Trail. Steve is spot-on.

Yeah, I just read the article and I agree with the reasoning used by the committee. Like you, I think the F/M Sprint deserved it. We already have the Humana Distaff, A Gleam, Ballerina, Princess Rooney, and more that are G1F/M sprints. It'll probably get a grade 1 next year I bet.

NT

it's great that they just sort-of seemed to assume that since they were calling them breeder's cup championship races that they could go to the head of the line and get G1 status immediately...good job by the stakes committee IMO.

That is great, these races could be a very good addition if they wind up G2s. As G1s there will be a lot more cannibilizing of the normal BC races. The FM Sprint is the only one that ultimately might deserve G1 status.

Good to see the arrogant, and out of touch, NTRA/BC get a deserved slap down. This was a poorly conceived and bad idea that is being shoved down everyones' throats. Finally somebody in racing gets something right...albeit this was a no-brainer.

We're just 2-4 years away from having a 5 horse breeders cup race. Hooray.

wow.
My hope is that some of the talented mile horses still enter into the Classic, because of the prestige and G1 status.

Interesting that the Bluegrass is still a G1. Not sure I love the idea of any polytrack races being Grade One.

Interesting...
 

i guess these races are going to get overnight stake quality horsies now that there is no graded status. bad decision to begin with to add these races and dilute the quality

Whatever, as long as they're good races to bet I'm interested.
And for a million buckaroos apiece, there will be some quality horses in there...

yeah, but for breeder's, graded status is very important

I never look at the graded designations because the committee does such a lousy job. I'm sure the class oriented handicappers gave Dominican no chance last week because he was an ungraded stakes winner. Meanwhile, Acey Deucy and Sutra are Gr. 1 winners.

Certainly an interesting decision. I agree with it to be honest. But I'm a bit discouraged hearing again how important purse is for a graded race. Purse shouldn't matter, right? If the quality is there, who cares about the purse. If the Derby was still $500k, would we see any less of a field? Hardly.

Opinion: BC and the Graded Stakes Commitee are going to get in a war

so, now they have to re-apply for grade 2 or 3 status.

interesting turn of events.

It's fairly clear the popular decision here is to dislike the additions. I'm sure I'm in the minority for liking the races themselves but my issue is the different day thing (although I also don't now how you'd put it all on one day. It's obviously meant do be like an Oaks/Derby thing). It was a definite slap in the face over the new additions but that said, either they're championships or they're not. They've sorta set these up like the technical Emmys or something. It kinda dulls the anticipation of the pageantry of the next day if they aren't made as big as possible.

If they're not the decider of the year end honors you're arguing either that there's insufficient quality of horse to get enough G1 caliber animals or that there's not enough preps to make a need for them to have a year end honor. If you think there's enough G1 caliber horses who have races in place to gear to a championship, you make them G1 off the bat. Now do all 3 meet the requirement? Not so much.

It helps if you add prep races for a Juvenile turf, otherwise we might as well mail the trophy to the top European 2yo and save them the airfare. As an American I'm frustrated with other countries getting the loveliness of turf racing sooner and more often than we do so I'd love nothing more than to see that sort of thing pick up. That said, I can see them saying 'are you nuts?' about a G1 Juvenile turf in the current situation. The thing is, if you have some horse that gets lucky on turf and it's graded, they can use that to jump the queue in the TC trail. I mean graded stakes earnings are graded stakes earnings right? Turf or dirt? Almost dangerous to make it a graded race til you know what you got but they need proper preps or they just shouldn't do it.

I wanted a dirt mile for some time now, call me crazy. To me there are enough talented milers you could get one heck of a race set up and these are horses that frankly shouldn't be in the Classic anyway. Can you get enough horses though? I guess you'd end up with some stellar miler types and make up the rest with horses that use it as a backup if they can't make the Sprint, Classic, or turf Mile. Could be, er, "interesting." Is it insane to move the Cigar Mile up to before the BC Dirt Mile? It feels like they'd skip the BC for that or maybe use it as a prep which would be lame--it's supposed to be the big prize. Filly/Mare Sprint's an obvious one they should've done.