To celebrate the centenary of the Swedish Derby in July 2017, the Swedish Jockey Club has injected more than £630,000 of prize money into a new nine-race series for 3-year-olds.
The series, which will be known as the 'Scandinavian Challenge,' will be staged at Malmo's Jagersro Racecourse and run from mid-June to mid-August. In addition to the Derby, which has doubled in value and is now worth in excess of £250,000, the series also includes the Oaks, with those 2400 metre contests being joined by The Voter, run over 1730 metres in June, and a 2650 metre race named The Hurricane, which will be run on the same day as the Oaks in August.
Svensk Galopp's Development Manager Bo Gill Borg hopes that the new initiative will attract more runners to Sweden from the UK. The most recent British runner in the Swedish Derby was the Elaine Burke-trained London Citizen (Proud Citizen), who finished second to Hurricane Red (Ire) (Hurricane Run {Ire}) in 2013.
Gill Borg commented, “The revised conditions for the Swedish Derby should make it appealing to decent handicappers with a rating of 90-100. We hope that owners and trainers will recognise the value that an entry in any of the feature races could add. There is no supplementary entry stage for any of the races in the series so horses with an entry may be of significant interest, particularly to Scandinavian-based owners at the sales in autumn.”
Entry to the Swedish Derby, which closes on Mar. 14, is 1,000 Swedish Krona, the equivalent of approximately £84.
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