The stakes action will kick off on Saturday at Fair Grounds with the $125,000 Mineshaft Handicap. Scheduled to be run at a mile and a sixteenth on the main track, the Grade 3 event has drawn a compact field of five colts and geldings. 
Although there are is a bevy of PresidentÂ’s Day stakes action around the country, the Grade 3, $500,000 Southwest Stakes February 15 at Oaklawn Park will take center stage in a Road to the Kentucky Derby points race that has drawn a field of 14 set to go a mile and a sixteenth.
On Saturday at Santa Anita, the track will host the $300,000 Las Virgenes Stakes. Restricted to three-year-old fillies, the Grade 2 event will be contested at one mile and has drawn a field of seven. 
On Saturday at Gulfstream Park, the stakes action will kick off with the $200,000 Forward Gal Stakes. Restricted to three-year-old fillies, the Grade 2 event will be run at seven furlongs on the main track and has drawn a field of seven. 
The Grade 3, $100,000 Megahertz for fillies and mares at a mile on the grass is the featured race on the January 18 MLK Day holiday card at Santa Anita. 
On Saturday at Fair Grounds, the stakes action will continue with the $60,000 Marie G. Krantz Memorial Stakes. Scheduled to be run at a mile and a sixteenth on the turf, the stakes race has drawn a full field of fourteen fillies and mares with two others listed as also-eligible. 
On Saturday at Gulfstream Park, the featured race is the $100,000 Dania Beach Stakes. A Grade 3 event restricted to three-year-olds, it will be contested at seven and a half furlongs on the turf and has drawn a field of ten colts and geldings. 
Santa Anita will kick off the stakes action on their opening day card with the $100,000 Daytona Stakes. A Grade 3 event carded at six and a half furlongs on the downhill turf course, the stakes race has drawn a field of thirteen colts and geldings. 
On Saturday at Fair Grounds, the stakes action will kick off with the $60,000 Blushing K.D. Stakes. Named in honor of the 1997 Kentucky Oaks (G1) winner, the race will be contested at a mile and a sixteenth on the turf and has drawn a field of twelve fillies and mares. 
Kentucky Derby Points System Doing Its Job
08 May 2016There will always be Kentucky Derby entrants that would be much better suited to skip the race entirely and find a better spot if not for the gusto of their well-meaning owners, but the Road to the Derby point qualifying system...
