Prix Jean Prat metres. For a period it was held in April, and it served as a trial for the Prix du Jockey Club. Both Prix Biennal races were renamed the Prix Jean Prat in 1940. This was in memory of Jean Prat (1847–1940), a successful racehorse owner and breeder. The version for three-year-olds was switched to late May or early June in 1961. It was shortened to 1,850 metres in 1962. It was transferred to Chantilly and cut to 1,800 metres in 1967. The present system of race grading was introduced in 1971, and for several years the event held Group 2
Maryland Jockey Club interruption by the U.S. Civil War. Maryland Governor Oden Bowie and others attended that Saratoga meet and devised the Dinner Party Stakes (now called the Dixie Stakes) for a track in Baltimore. In September 1869, the first Maryland State Fair was held at Pimlico Race Course. The present site of the Maryland Jockey Club was opened at Pimlico on October 25, 1870. A new corporation (Pimlico) was organized on May 14 of that same year in a ballroom of the Barnum's City Hotel in Baltimore. Governor Oden Bowie was elected its first President. The first stakes race held at the