Breeders' Cup adds Juvenile Turf Sprint, boosts Sprint purse

Breeders’ Cup has added a race to its official roster, the Juvenile Turf Sprint, and will increase the purse of the Breeders’ Cup Sprint to $2 million, the organization announced Monday.

The Turf Sprint, which has been run as an undercard race during the two-day Breeders’ Cup event in the past several years, will be run at about 5 1/2 furlongs on the turf and be open to 2-year-olds. The race will have a $1 million purse and now be considered the 14th official Breeders’ Cup race of the two-day event, which will be held this year at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., on Nov. 2-3.

Though no announcement was made as to whether the new race would be held on Friday or Saturday, traditionally the turf races for 2-year-olds are held Friday and the juvenile dirt races are Saturday.

Dora Delgado, the Breeders’ Cup’s senior vice president of racing and nominations, said that Breeders’ Cup decided to add the race because of a history of oversubscribed fields for both the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf and Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Fillies, which were added to the official roster in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Fields in those races are limited to 14 horses.

“Each year, the Juvenile Turf and the Juvenile Fillies Turf are oversubscribed,” she said. “We feel that the Juvenile Turf Sprint will be a popular draw among horsemen from North America and overseas stables and will generate interest among North American racetracks to card races in this division.”

The $500,000 boost to the Sprint purse restores the race to a $2 million purse. The Sprint had a purse of $2 million from 2006 to 2010, but it was cut to $1.5 million in 2011.

Breeders’ Cup also said that it would add $1 million in purses to undercard events over the two days, and it used that figure to claim that the event’s races would now offer more than $30 million in total purses.

The announcement of the new race and purse increases came 10 days after Breeders’ Cup held a board meeting to discuss potential changes to its lineup. Several members of the organization’s board have been pressing for changes under the belief that the event should be growing faster, in terms of handle and television ratings.

Handle at last year’s event was $135.5 million, up 5.7 percent and the highest total since 2013. The increase came in the wake of changes to the tax treatment of parimutuel winnings that were highly beneficial to horseplayers.

Breeders’ Cup officials had previously declined to comment about any changes to the lineup that were approved at the board meeting. The potential changes included moving the event to a date in December and the addition of a Breeders’ Cup Derby for 3-year-old horses.