Executives from the Stronach Group met with shareholders in the $12-million GI Pegasus World Cup Monday at Saratoga to discuss details of the upcoming world's richest race, which will be staged Jan. 28 at Gulfstream Park.
“It went really well,” said Stronach Group executive Mike Rogers Tuesday. “Everyone was there, pretty much. [Founder and Honorary Chairman] Frank [Stronach] led the meeting and [Chairwoman and President] Belinda [Stronach] was very active, which was great. We talked about changing the purse distribution a little bit–just adjusting it slightly–but we all agreed that unless we got 100% consensus we weren't going to make a change. So we're going to let everyone vote on that. We also talked about the scratch rules and marketing strategies. It was a good first meeting to get everybody in the room and introduce everybody to one another. It was productive, and I think everyone felt good about it.”
Because of the format of the race, rules have been put in place to help ensure a full field of 12. Each shareholder will be allowed to enter a main Pegasus runner and an alternate who would run if their first entrant is scratched. A $400,000 undercard race called the Poseidon S., run under the exact same conditions as the Pegaus–nine furlongs on the dirt for 4-year-olds and up–will give preference to Pegasus entrants who did not draw into the race. Rogers noted, however, that the Poseidon field would be filled out with horses not entered in the Pegasus.
Any stakeholder left without a horse in the Pegasus World Cup due a verified gate scratch before the designated cut-off on race day will still be eligible to receive last-place purse money and share in other revenues generated by the event. Proposed purse structure changes would take prize money from sixth through 12th and increase prizes for fourth and fifth to incentivize jockeys to ride out their mounts for the integrity of superfecta and super hi 5 wagering.
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