Breeders Cup Championship

Seldom can there be a bigger purse in horse racing than the Breeders Cup Championships, this year being staged at the fabled home of the Kentucky Derby, the vast Churchill Downs track in Louisville.

With $26m in total prizemoney, spread over two days of racing on November 4 and 5, it is billed as the richest two days in sport and the defining event of the international racing season.

The prizemoney is spread over 15 races, which act as the traditional end of the horseracing season in the US, its finale being the prestigious one and one-quarter mile-long Breeders Cup Classic, known as The Final Race, offering a huge $5m in prizemoney, the richest race in North America, and the second highest purse in the world.

The races are open to any thoroughbred in the world that meets the eligibility requirements, with each race limited to 14 starters over three years old – if a race has more than 14 horses pre-enter, a selection system is used to whittle down the starters for each race.

The race was notably filled with American thoroughbreds but nowadays more and more international owners enter, not least thanks to the French horse Arcangues,  which romped home in 1993 at 133-1, the biggest upset in the race’s 28-year history.

This year the fabled female thoroughbred Zenyatta, the first female to win the classic, is hosting the event, possibly America’s most famous racehorse right now.

If you want tickets and be among the ore than 70,000 who throng to the Downs for the two-day event, be they single-day seats or luxury two-day packages, visit here.