1973 Belmont Stakes a sloppy track. However, Knightly Dawn was scratched prior to race day. The horse's scratch also reduced the winner's share from $150,200 to $90,120. There was much speculation going into the Stakes over Secretariat's bid for the Triple Crown. Since 1948, when Citation achieved the feat, there had been six horses that had won both the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes before failing in the Belmont Stakes. When comparing Secretariat to those six horses' health and fitness before the Belmont Stakes, writer Bonifice felt Secretariat was in the best shape, almost as good as when he entered the Kentucky
Kentucky Derby Challenge Stakes Kentucky Derby Challenge Stakes The Kentucky Derby Challenge Stakes was an English Thoroughbred horse race intended to become an annual race, but was run only one time on 18 March 2009 at Kempton Park Racecourse in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey. Open to three-year-old European horses, it was raced clockwise at a distance of nine furlongs ( miles, app. 1800 metres) on Polytrack. The winner of the race was guaranteed one of the twenty starting spots in the mile (10 furlongs) 2009 Kentucky Derby held on the first Saturday in May on the dirt track at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. The race