Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint, two other stakes boosted to Grade 1 for 2022
The American Graded Stakes Committee has upgraded three stakes to Grade 1 status and downgraded two Grade 1s to Grade 2s, as part of its annual process to assign quality ratings to all eligible stakes in the U.S., the committee announced on Friday.
In total, the committee, which is administered by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, assigned grades to four more stakes than were graded in 2021. In total, 449 eligible stakes received grades for this year, compared to 445 in 2021.
The three new Grade 1 races for 2022 are the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint, the Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland in Kentucky, and the New York Stakes at Belmont Park. The downgraded Grade 1 races are the Secretariat Stakes at Arlington Park and the Flower Bowl Stakes at Saratoga. The Juvenile Turf Sprint, which was first held in 2018, was the only Breeders’ Cup race that had not been assigned a Grade 1 rating.
The Blue Grass, one of the premier Kentucky Derby preps, returns to Grade 1 status for the first time since 2016.
Churchill Downs Inc., the owner of Arlington Park, did not apply for racing dates for 2022, and the company has reached an agreement to sell the property to the Chicago Bears, though that deal will not close until next year. The committee assigns grades based on the previous year, and races that are not run two years consecutively can have their grades dropped. Arlington's two other Grade 1 races, the Arlington Million and Beverly D., maintain their Grade 1 status for 2022.
Five races were upgraded from Grade 3 to Grade 2: the Lukas Classic at Churchill Downs, the Wonder Again and Bed o’ Roses at Belmont Park, the Turf Sprint at Kentucky Downs, and the Shuvee Stakes at Saratoga. Four races were downgraded from Grade 2 to Grade 3: the Falls City at Churchill, the Best Pal at Del Mar, and the Adirondack and Bernard Baruch at Saratoga.
The graded stakes committee weighs the recent history of all eligible stakes races run in the U.S. in order to determine a race’s grade. Grades can have important impacts on the value of bloodstock and the consideration of voters when determining year-end championship honors.
Thirteen races were upgraded from listed status to Grade 3 status, while nine races were downgraded from Grade 3 to listed.
According to the committee, there were 891 races held at U.S. tracks in 2021 that were eligible for grading. Of that total, 50.4 percent were assigned grades.
Disregarding the impact of the COVID pandemic on racing schedules in 2020 and 2021, the number of races held in the U.S. has been steadily declining for decades. From 2009 to 2019, the number of races dropped from a total of 49,368 to 36,207, a decline of 26.7 percent, putting pressure on the committee to pare graded stakes from the list. There were 489 graded stakes assigned in 2009, or 0.99 percent of all races that year, and 450 graded stakes assigned in 2019, or 1.24 percent of all races that year.