Horseracing purse increases in the Pennsylvania Derby and Cash Call Mile

Horseracing purse increases

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One Step Back, Two Steps Forward
Increases in horseracing purses

Pimlico officially announced its 2007 spring/summer stakes schedule on February 20. Now the Pimlico Special is officially dead for 2007, and the races’ absence is yet another sign of the tenuous financial situation at the Maryland Jockey Club. The Maryland racing breeding and racing industry is dying a slow death, starving on an island in the alternative gaming sea of Delaware, West Virginia and now Pennsylvania. In fact, just up the road from Baltimore in Bensalem, Pa it’s quite a different story.

The Pennsylvania Derby, a grade two race for three year-olds at Philadelphia Park, will be run for $1 million this year, the first ever seven figure race in the Keystone State. The traditional Labor Day feature wasn’t carded last year while Philadelphia Park was being converted into a racino and the new big pot for the tracks signature race is the direct result of the new infusion of gaming revenue. The race was last contested in 2005 for a $250,000 purse.

Horses like Dixieland Band, Broad Brush, Afleet, Summer Squall, Eclipse Champion Macho Uno, Harlan’s Holiday and Sun King have won the race over the years. Summer Squall ran in Pennsylvania back in the days when lasix was still banned in New York, forcing the Preakness winner to skip the Travers. The purse of the Pa. Derby will now be on par with that of the more prestigious Travers, to be run just two weeks earlier in 2007. It will be interesting to see what kind of fields these two races attract this year.

Out west there is another race with a new seven figure purse. The Cash Call Mile at Hollywood Park, already the richest race for turf fillies and mares outside of Breeders’ Cup day, will see its purse upped from $750,000 to $1 million for 2007. Just two years ago the race was the little ol’ Royal Heroine, a run-of-the-mill California grade three with a $100,000 purse. Then in late 2005, John Paul Reddam stepped in with his company CashCall and put forth big sponsorship dollars. Hollywood Park took the cash and ran with it, promoting the reinvented race to international horseman along with the American Oaks, which had been attracting strong contingents of foreign runners all along. The plan worked perfectly last year with the 2005 American Oaks runner-up Dance in the Dark coming back from Japan to win the CashCall Mile. This year there will a new wrinkle. Aside from the new seven figure purse, the CashCall Mile will be run on Friday night July 6, the night before the American Oaks, along with to other stakes. Martin Panza, Hollywood Park’s vice president of racing told The Blood-Horse:

“We've always believed in promoting Friday night racing at Hollywood Park, and for the first time, we will have a major racing event on a night program.”

While it’s a little discouraging that the purse enhancements at Philly Park and Hollywood Park are not born of growth in handle, but of alternative gambling and sponsorship dollars, it is encouraging that the funds are being used in creative and progressive ways.

Gender Equity

Another encouraging development last week was the institution of an Eclipse Award for female sprinters. In a recent Daily Racing Form column Steven Crist, who was a party to the discussions, laid out some the reasoning for the new award. He and the other decision makers were right on the money. There is already a viable series of grade one sprints for the distaff set throughout the year while there are not, yet anyway, similar races for the other divisions under consideration. What’s the point of awarding an Eclipse for a grass two year-old for a colt who won the restricted With Approval and the $75,000 Pilgrim, a listed race?

But with the new Breeders’ Cup races for turf juveniles, as well as the Mile Dirt, and the carrot of possible new Eclipse Awards, tracks will begin to reformulate stakes programs to cater to heretofore underserved divisions. Indeed this has already happened with NYRA moving the aforementioned Pilgrim from late October to a prime spot during the Belmont Fall Meeting. The formal recognition of the filly and mare sprint division and the coming recognition of the other divisions like turf juveniles and turf sprinters is a great positive for racing. There will surely be more developments to come.

Matt O'Neil has been a racing enthusiast since the mid-1980's. He is a freelance writer and thoroughbred marketing consultant and editor of the breeding journal Owner-Breeder International. Contact Matt O'Neil