Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes The Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes is an American Thoroughbred horse race run annually during the last week of November at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. A Grade II event, the race is open to two-year-olds willing to race one and one-sixteenth miles on the dirt, and is a Road to the Kentucky Derby race, offering points to the top four horses towards being one of the 18 horses eligible for the race by points in North American races (there are spots available to European and Asian horses which participate in races in their respective continents, but
American Quarter Horse hence the nickname. Horses listed in the appendix may be entered in competition, but offspring are not initially eligible for full AQHA registration. If the Appendix horse meets certain conformational criteria and is shown or raced successfully in sanctioned AQHA events, the horse can earn its way from the appendix into the permanent studbook, making its offspring eligible for AQHA registration. Since Quarter Horse/Thoroughbred crosses continue to enter the official registry of the American Quarter Horse breed, this creates a continual gene flow from the Thoroughbred breed into the American Quarter Horse breed, which has altered many of the characteristics