The 2025 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland, one of the most significant prep races for the Kentucky Derby, will be worth $1.25 million, Keeneland announced on Tuesday along with a handful of other purse increases for its spring meet.
The Blue Grass, scheduled this year for April 5, four weeks before the Derby, had a purse of $1 million from 2015 to 2019, before it was reduced to $800,000 during the height of the pandemic. The purse was restored to $1 million in 2022.
With the purse increase, the Blue Grass will be the second-richest Derby prep on the domestic calendar, behind the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn. The purse of the Arkansas Derby was raised to $1.25 million in 2022, and then raised to $1.5 million for the 2024 running. Oaklawn’s purse distribution is heavily subsidized by a casino development on the property.
Keeneland itself benefits from a casino it co-owns with The Red Mile, a harness track in downtown Lexington. The track’s purses are also subsidized by the Kentucky Thoroughbred Development Fund, which receives a statutorily mandated cut of revenues from casinos. Those subsidies are only available to Kentucky-bred horses.
Other purses for the major prep races to the Derby include $1 million for the Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park, $1 million for the Louisiana Derby at Fair Grounds, $750,000 for the Wood Memorial at Aqueduct in New York, and $500,000 for the Santa Anita Derby in Southern California.
Keeneland also raised the purse for the Ashland Stakes from $600,000 to $750,000, and for the Transylvania Stakes, from $400,000 to $600,000. The total amount of stakes purses for the track’s spring meet will be worth $9.4 million, a record.
Thirteen other stakes during the meet were also targeted for purse increases, ranging from $50,000 to $100,000.
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