BC Challenge Series Schedule Announced
Updated: October 4, 2015 at 4:36 pm
The official 2015 Breeders’ Cup Challenge series schedule, consisting of 78 automatic qualifying races, including eight new races, was released by the Breeders’ Cup Friday. Breeders’ Cup will pay entry fees and provide travel allowances for the Challenge winners to compete in the Championships, which will be held at Keeneland for the first time Oct. 30-31. Click here for complete schedule.
Breeders’ Cup will provide a $40,000 travel stipend to the connections of each Challenge winner from outside of North America, and in North America they will provide a $10,000 travel allowance for winners stabled outside of Kentucky. The Challenge winner must already be nominated to the Breeders’ Cup program or it must be done by the Championships’ pre-entry deadline of Oct. 19 to receive the rewards.
On Apr. 8, Breeders’ Cup and NBC Sports announced an expanded partnership to televise “Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series: Win and You’re In”, a series of 18 Challenge races across 10 shows on NBC and NBCSN from top tracks in the U.S. from June until the World Championships. Click here for complete television schedule.
The Breeders’ Cup Challenge series, now in its ninth year, will be held at many of the world’s premier racetracks in 13 countries: U.S., Canada, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, England, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Peru and South Africa.
Last year, 37 participants in the Breeders’ Cup earned automatic starting positions through the Breeders’ Cup Challenge series. Bayern (Offlee Wild) (Classic), Main Sequence (Aldebaran) (Turf), Work All Week (City Zip) (Sprint) and Goldencents (Into Mischief) (Dirt Mile) were Challenge qualifiers who won Breeders’ Cup races.
“The Breeders’ Cup Challenge has grown into a prominent international series with highly competitive qualifying for the Championships throughout the year on five continents,” said Craig Fravel, President and CEO of Breeders’ Cup Ltd. “Horsemen around the world continue to take advantage of the series’ benefits of automatic starting positions, free entry and the travel allowances to gain a spot in a Breeders’ Cup race. We also greatly appreciate the commitment and enthusiasm from our partner tracks in their conduct and promotion of the series.”
Some of the highlights of this year’s Challenge series include:
-Seven automatic berths awarded for the $5 million GI Breeders’ Cup Classic: GI Stephen Foster H. at Churchill Downs June 13; GI The Gold Cup at Santa Anita June 27; GI William Hill Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park Aug. 2; GI Whitney H. at Saratoga Aug. 8; GI TVG Pacific Classic at Del Mar Aug. 22; GI Awesome Again S. at Santa Anita (TBD) and GI Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Oct. 3.
-The series will include eight new races: the Gran Premio Criadores at Palermo in Argentina (Distaff); the GII Fleur de Lis H. (Distaff); the G1 Qatar Sussex S. at Goodwood in England (Mile); the GI Sword Dancer S. (Turf) and the GI Spinaway S. (Juvenile Fillies) at Saratoga; the GII Princess Rooney H. (Filly & Mare Sprint), the GII Smile Sprint H. (Sprint); and the G2 T. Von Zastrow Stutenpreis at Baden Baden in Germany (Filly & Mare Turf).
-For the sixth consecutive year, the Breeders’ Cup will pay foal nominators of Challenge winners a $10,000 award.
The international portion of the series began on Jan. 10 in South Africa at Kenilworth Racecourse, when Futura (SAF) won the G1 Maine Chance Farms Paddock S. and qualified for an automatic berth into the GI Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf, and Inara (SAF) captured the G1 Main Chance Farm Paddock S. and gained an automatic berth into the GI Breeders’ Cup Mile.
Earlier this week in Australia at Royal Randwick, Chautauqua (AUS) won the G1 TJ Smith S. (Turf Sprint) and Kermadec (NZ) won the G1 Doncaster Mile (Mile).
The first two North American races of the series will be run on June 6 with the GI Metropolitan H. (Dirt Mile) and the GI Ogden Phipps H. (Distaff) at Belmont Park, and will be televised live on NBCSN.