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
Fort Larned (horse) raced only once as a two-year-old, finishing fourth in a maiden special weight race at Churchill Downs on November 27, 2010. At age three, Fort Larned ran nine times, winning three of them. His first win came on January 8, 2011 at Gulfstream Park, after which he lost his next four starts. Wilkes decided to try the horse on the turf and Fort Larned responded by winning an allowance race on September 10 at Kentucky Downs. After two more losses on the turf, Fort Larned made his last start of the year at Churchill Downs on November 27 in an