Stephen Foster Handicap Stephen Foster Handicap The Stephen Foster Handicap is an American Thoroughbred horse race run in mid-June near the end of the Churchill Downs Spring Meet in Louisville, Kentucky. The race is named in honor of famed composer Stephen Foster, who wrote numerous melodies including "My Old Kentucky Home" which is the song that is annually played as the Kentucky Derby field parades on the track. It is run on the dirt at a distance of miles for three-year-olds and up. The Stephen Foster Handicap was created in 1982 and progressed from Grade III status in 1988 to Grade II in
In Excess (horse) at Churchill Downs and In Excess put up slow times in pre-race training on that track. As a result, his trainer elected to run him in the Breeders' Cup Mile on grass, a surface he had won on in England and the United States. In Excess finished ninth in the Mile, his worst American finish ever, and it cost him the Horse of the Year title. In Excess raced in 1992 at age five, with his best Graded stakes results a second in the San Antonio Handicap, and a third in both the Metropolitan and Carter Handicaps. Retired to stud