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
Havre de Grace (horse) over Flat Out, joining the 2009 American Horse of the Year, Rachel Alexandra, as the only female horses to win the race. Her Woodward victory was followed by the October 1 Grade I Beldame Stakes at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, in which she scored by 8 1/4 lengths over eventual Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic winner Royal Delta. Havre de Grace closed out her 2011 campaign in the Breeders' Cup Classic on November 5, 2011, at Churchill Downs where she was again pitted against male horses. However, she fell short in her attempt to join Zenyatta in becoming only