Vinery to sponsor Turfway fixture

Vinery will sponsor Turfway Park’s most important 3-year-old race, the race previously known as the Grade 2 Lane’s End Stakes, for at least five years starting in 2011.

Under the sponsorship agreement, the race will be known as the Vinery Racing Spiral Stakes, harking back to its original 1972 name, the Spiral Stakes. Lane’s End Farm was the 1 1/8-mile Kentucky Derby prep race’s most recent sponsor. A Grade 2 race in 2010, it will be a Grade 3 contest after the American Graded Stakes Committee downgraded it.

The Vinery Racing Spiral Stakes will carry a $500,000 purse again this year.

Dean’s Kitten won the race in 2010.

After five years, Vinery can consider renewing its sponsorship annually under the sponsorship contract.

Vinery operates North American farms in Kentucky, Florida, and New York. Turfway Park, originally named Latonia, is located in Florence, Ky. It is jointly owned by Keeneland and Caesars Entertainment.