A: When it’s an allowance optional claimer that has drawn horses with Grade I experience including the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, Travers, Met Mile and Jockey Club Gold Cup. That’s what the field looks like for the ninth race on an 11-race card that kicks off the 156th Saratoga Race Course meet on Thursday. It’s easy to look at the stakes schedule at Saratoga to be reminded of how important the meet is in the overall landscape of Thoroughbred racing in North America.
It doesn’t begin and end there, though, so it’s not unusual to find races that don’t have a name or a grade on them, but probably would need to, at many other tracks, in order to assemble a field like the one in the ninth on opening day. That's an indication of how the racing quality at the meet isn't restricted to graded stakes, even as Saratoga offers racing that covers the full spectrum of conditions, all the way down to the maiden claiming ranks. That said, the stakes calendar, of course, promises to attract the best the sport has to offer, with a total prize purse of $20.
75 million and 19 Grade I stakes sprinkled throughout the season, starting with the Diana on the turf on Saturday. The annual highlight of the meet, the $1.25 million Travers Stakes for 3-year-olds, will be held on Saturday, Aug.
24 and likely will draw a variety of horses who ran on the Triple Crown trail, along with some late-blooming faces in the division. Saratoga’s expansive stakes program covers all corners of racing, tho.
