Colonial Downs Adds Virginia Oaks

A new turf race for 3-year-old fillies, the $200,000 Virginia Oaks, highlights a fifteen-race stakes lineup this summer at Virginia's Colonial Downs. All but one of the stakes will be contested over the track's Secretariat turf course.

The 1 1/8-mile Virginia Oaks will complement the seventh running of the $500,000 Virginia Derby (gr. IIIT) and $200,000 All Along Breeders' Cup Stakes (gr. IIIT) on July 10 to give Colonial Downs its first ever "Million Dollar" program. The $50,000 David "Zeke" Ferguson Memorial Steeplechase Stakes, which has been a staple of past Virginia Derby programs, moves to July 11 to highlight the Sunday card of Derby weekend.

A series of eleven $50,000 stakes will extend from opening day through closing weekend. Four of those are for open company while the remainder will be restricted to Virginia-breds.

The Da Hoss, Buckland, Chenery and Tippett Stakes are open while the Punch Line, John D. Marsh, Somethingroyal, Oakley, W. Meredith Bailes Memorial, Brookemeade, and Daniel Van Clief Stakes are restricted.

Colonial Downs opens it eighth season of Thoroughbred racing June 11 and continues through July 26.