Breeders' Cup to pay expenses for Irish winners

Ireland will host four Breeders’ Cup Challenge races this year, with the winners getting the added bonus of their entry fees, a US$20,000 travel allowance and automatic entry into the 2011 Breeders' Cup World Championships at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky on November 4-5.

The four Irish races in question are the Pretty Polly Stakes, Moyglare Stud Stakes and the Vincent O’Brien National Stakes all at the Curragh plus Leopardstown's Irish Champion Stakes.

The four Irish Group 1's are part of the 2011 Breeders' Cup Challenge series, which consists of 68 stakes races throughout the world’s premier racetracks in the USA, Canada, Argentina, Australia, Britain, France, Japan as well as in Ireland.

As part of an enhanced benefits program this year, the Breeders’ Cup will pay the entry fees of all Challenge winners into the Championships and provide a travel allowance of US$20,000 to the winning connections of each Challenge winner from outside of North America.

The Challenge winner must be nominated to the Breeders’ Cup program by the Championships’ pre-entry deadline of October 24 to receive the rewards. Also new this year, breeders of Challenge winners will benefit as the Breeders’ Cup will pay a $10,000 award to the nominator of each Challenge race winner.

The Breeders’ Cup Challenge races in Ireland, with the corresponding qualifying races, are as follows:

Pretty Polly Stakes - US$2 million Emirates Airline Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf

Moyglare Stud Stakes - US$1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf

Irish Champion Stakes - US$3 million Emirates Airline Breeders’ Cup Turf

Vincent O’Brien National Stakes - US$1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf

To ensure that the world’s best horses can compete in the Challenge series and the Breeders’ Cup World Championships, Breeders’ Cup is offering a special one-time “Open Enrollment” program this year.

The Open Enrollment program, which ends on June 30, is available to any non-nominated horse anywhere in the world as long as the sire is Breeders’ Cup nominated in 2011. Non-nominated horses can be made fully eligible according to the following Open Enrollment fee schedule: yearlings for $3,000, two-year-olds for $6,000 and three-year-olds and up for $25,000.

“We have strengthened the Breeders’ Cup Challenge by upgrading the quality of the races and creating greater incentives for horsemen to participate in the series by paying the winners’ entry fees and travel expenses into the Championships,” said Clem Murphy, chairman of the Breeders’ Cup Racing and Nominations Committee.

“All of these factors will help to generate increased awareness for our Championships throughout the summer and fall while promoting the best of Thoroughbred racing from around the world,” he added.

Jason Morris, HRI's Director of Racing, commented: "Horse Racing Ireland is delighted at the continuing inclusion of four Irish races in the Breeders' Cup Challenge Series, which is due recognition that the Irish Champion, Pretty Polly, National and Moyglare Stakes are amongst the very top races in the world in their respective categories.

"The added incentive of the Breeders' Cup paying the entry fees and a travel allowance for the four winners in the nominated contests will add further lustre to these already great Irish races and will hopefully result in at least one horse going on to emulate High Chaparral who completed the double in recent years.”

The other Breeders’ Cup Challenge races to be run in Europe are:

King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, Coolmore Nunthorpe, Fillies’ Mile, Dubai Dewhurst Stakes, Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (sponsored by Quipco), Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud, Prix Haras de Fresnay-Le-Buffard Jacques le Marois, Qatar Prix Niel, Qatar Petroleum Prix de L’Opera and the Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere.

Total purses for this year’s two-day event at Churchill Downs, Nov. 4-5, are $26 million.