Aqueduct 2021-22 winter meet features 46 stakes worth $5.795 million
There will be 46 stakes totaling $5.795 million in purses offered at the 2021-22 Aqueduct winter meet, the New York Racing Association announced Thursday.
The winter meet begins Dec. 9 and runs through March 27. Racing will be conducted four days a week through February and then three days a week in March, a schedule that has been in place the last several years. The only noteable change to the racing schedule is there is no live racing on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but there will be a live card on Presidents Day (Feb. 21).
The winter stakes schedule features three points-scoring races for 3-year-olds trying to make the Kentucky Derby. Those races are the $150,000 Jerome (New Year’s Day), the Grade 3, $250,000 Withers on Feb. 5, and the Grade 3, $300,000 Gotham on March 5. The first two races offer Derby points on a 10-4-2-1 basis. The Gotham offers points on a 50-20-10-5 scale. Those three races lead to the Wood Memorial in early April.
The richest races offered at the winter meet are the two $500,000 New York Stallion Series races for 2-year-olds – the Great White Way division for males and the Fifth Avenue division for fillies – on Dec. 18. Both races are seven furlongs.
In 2022, the biggest day of the winter meet is March 5, featuring the Gotham, the Grade 3, $200,000 Tom Fool, the $250,000 Busher Stakes (for 3-year-old fillies), and the $125,000 Heavenly Prize Stakes.
The Busher, at one mile, and the Busanda, a 1 1/8-mile race on Jan. 23, offer 3-year-old fillies qualifying points toward the Kentucky Oaks.