Arlington Park announces 22 stakes races for 2011
Arlington Park has released a 2011 schedule of 22-stakes races and two overnight races worth more than $4.3 million.
The schedule, part of the track's 86 days of racing opens Friday, May 6, and runs through Sunday, Sept. 25.
The International Festival of Racing, featuring the 29th running of the Grade I Arlington Million, will be on Saturday, Aug. 13, and features three Grade I stakes — the $1 million Arlington Million for 3-year-olds and older, the $750,000 Beverly D. for fillies & mares 3-years-old and older and the $400,000 Secretariat Stakes for 3-year-olds.
The Million and Secretariat are both run at North America's classic distance of a mile and a quarter while the Beverly D. is contested at a mile and three-sixteenths. The streamlined schedule features several “big event” days that combine multiple stakes races onto a single card, Arlington Park said in a prepared release.
The first date will be Saturday, May 28, and will feature two $100,000 stakes races – the Grade III $100,000 Arlington Matron for fillies and mares at a mile and an eighth on Polytrack and the $100,000 Arlington Classic, the first leg of the Mid-America Triple for 3-year-olds at one and one-sixteenth miles on the Arlington's turf track.
The May calendar also includes the Grade III $100,000 Hanshin Cup for older horses at one mile over Polytrack on Saturday, May 21.
The June stakes slate is highlighted by the 12th annual Prairie State Festival on June 25, which includes six $100,000 stakes for horses bred or foaled in Illinois.
On July 9, Million Preview Day, scheduled five weeks before the International Festival of Racing, includes major prep races for three International Festival events. The Grade III $150,000 Arlington Handicap serves as the final local prep race for the Arlington Million, while the Grade III $150,000 Modesty Handicap plays the same role for the Beverly D., and the Grade II $200,000 American Derby, which is also the second leg of the Mid-America Triple, leads into the Secretariat Stakes.
As in each of the last two years, the top three finishers in the Preview Day stakes races will receive automatic starting berths with entry and start fees waived in the counterpart race during the International Festival of Racing.
Also to be run in July are the 2011 renewals of the Grade III $100,000 Chicago Handicap, a seven-furlong main track race won the last two years by 2009 Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint heroine Informed Decision; the $100,000 Arlington Sprint, a 5½-furlong turf dash won last year by eventual Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint victor Chamberlain Bridge; and the Grade III $100,000 Stars and Stripes Stakes at a mile and a half on the turf.
The Chicago Handicap is slated for Sunday, July 3, with the Sprint scheduled to run less than two weeks later on Saturday, July 16, followed by the Stars and Stripes on Saturday, July 23.
Two-year-olds will be featured on Saturday, Sept. 10, when Arlington presents the Grade III $150,000 Arlington-Washington Futurity for 2-year-old colts and geldings at one mile on Polytrack and the $150,000 Arlington-Washington Lassie for 2-year-old fillies at one mile on the main track.
Two additional stakes race are scheduled for the meet's final month – the Grade III $100,000 Washington Park Handicap for older horses at a mile and an eighth on the main track on Saturday, Sept. 3, and the Grade III $100,000 Pucker Up Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at a mile and an eighth on the turf, which will be run on Saturday, Sept. 17.
In addition, the two Illinois Owners' stakes races for horses owned by Illinois residents, which were run as $100,000 stakes last year will instead be run this year as $50,000 overnight races and will be held on Friday, August 12 – the day before the International Festival of Racing.