Colonial Downs adds a stakes for expanded 2020 season

Colonial Downs on Friday released its 2020 stakes schedule, which includes 18 stakes worth a total of $2 million. In 2019, the Virginia track’s first meet after being shuttered for live racing six years, Colonial hosted 17 stakes worth $1.8 million.

The 2020 season has been expanded to 18 racing days from 15 in 2019, starts two weeks earlier than it did last year, and ends one week later, with six three-day racing weeks beginning July 23 and ending Aug. 29.

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The meet’s most important day of racing comes Aug. 29, when it hosts four stakes worth a total of $600,000, headed by the Grade 3, $250,000 Virginia Derby. In 2019, Four Wheel Drive made his career debut winning the Colonial Rosie’s Stakes and went on to capture the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint for trainer Wesley Ward.