Saturday will be the 26th running of the Claiming Crown. Envisioned to be the “claiming horse owner’s Breeders’ Cup” the annual day of racing has featured some of the most competitive ‘blue collar’ horses in the country. The event will be held at Churchill Downs for the second time in its history. Past hosts include Fair Grounds, Gulfstream Park, Ellis Park, Philadelphia Park (now Parx) and its original home Canterbury Park where Claiming Crown began in 1999 and was held 10 times.
That first year, jointly sponsored by the National HBPA and the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, there were six races with purses totaling $560,000. Saturday there are eight Claiming Crown races with purses of $1.1 million. The 1999 purses were generous enough to attract trainers from tracks across the country including Hollywood Park, Churchill and Monmouth.
The building blocks provided by Canterbury in the early days allowed the event to grow to what the originators had hoped, offering large purses and reachable targets for horse owners that normally do not compete at that level. The Claiming Crown handle apex at Canterbury came in the 2004 rendition when $3,632,968 was wagered. That total is the third largest handle total in the history of the racetrack.
For a recap of the memorable 1999 inaugural Claiming Crown read this story from David Miller.
Racing begins at noon Saturday at Churchill. Two Canterbury-based horses are entered. Ember is 20-1 in the Iron Horse (race 4) and Philo Bedoe, owned by Rocket Wrench Racing, is on the Also Eligible list for race 8, the Canterbury Tom Metzen Memorial.