Gulfstream championship meet to offer 60 stakes worth $13.6 million

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. - The $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational, $1 million Florida Derby, and $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf highlight the stakes schedule for the 2022-2023 Gulfstream Park championship meet released on Tuesday.

The championship meeting opens several weeks later than usual this winter, on Dec. 26, and continues through April 2.

A total of 60 stakes, 35 of them graded events, will be decided for $13.6 million in purses. The schedule includes 31 races carded to be run over Gulfstream Park’s newly renovated turf course.

The Pegasus World Cup will be run on Jan. 28, one of five “Super Saturday” programs scheduled during the winter season. The mile and one-eighth event for 4-year-olds and upward was won earlier this year by Life Is Good, who defeated defending champion and 2021 Horse of the Year Knicks Go. The card includes five other graded stakes, including the 1 1/8-mile, Grade 1 Pegasus Turf and $500,000, Grade 3 Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Invitational.

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The nine-furlong, Grade 1 Florida Derby on April 1 tops a program that will offer 10 stakes overall, six of them graded. The card also features the Grade 2 Gulfstream Park Oaks for 3-year-old fillies.

The Florida Derby, which has produced 24 Kentucky Derby winners from 71 runnings, will conclude Gulfstream Park’s road to the Triple Crown that begins with the one-mile Mucho Macho Man on Jan. 1, and is followed by the Grade 3 Holy Bull on Feb. 4 and Grade 2 Fountain of Youth on March 4.

The first Super Saturday card will be held Dec. 31 and includes the Grade 2 Fort Lauderdale and four other graded stakes (Suwannee River, Rampart, Sugar Swirl, and Harlan’s Holiday). Those races traditionally had been offered earlier in December but have been moved back on the calendar due to the later opening of the championship session.

“With races like the Pegasus World Cup, Florida Derby, Fountain of Youth, and Gulfstream Park Oaks, along with the opening of Gulfstream’s new world class turf course, we believe this winter season will be one of the sport’s most anticipated and popular events,” said Aidan Butler, the chief operating officer of 1/ST Racing, which owns Gulfstream.

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