Lane's End to Sponsor Churchill Downs Handicap

Lane's End Farm will be the new sponsor of an historic stakes race at Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day, it was announced in Louisville on Wednesday.

The Versailles, Ky. farm, which is owned by Eclipse Award-winning breeder and Churchill Downs board chairman William S. Farish, will sponsor the $150,000 Lane's End Churchill Downs Handicap, which will be run for the 67th time on Saturday, May 5. The grade II race for 4-year-olds and up will continue to be run at seven furlongs.

Recent winners of race have included current Lane's End stallion Pleasant Tap, who won the race in 1992 on his way to earning an Eclipse Award as that year's top older male; Dancing Spree, who won it in 1989 and also captured that year's Breeders' Cup Sprint (gr. I); and Beau Genius, who won the race in. Other notable winners include Thirty Six Red, Diligence, Distorted Humor, and last year's winner, Straight Man.

The Lane's End Churchill Downs Handicap first appeared on the Churchill Downs racing schedule in 1911, but was dropped after three years. The race was revived in 1938 and has been run each year since. The race has been conducted at its current distance since 1956. The race is scheduled to be the third of 10 races on Kentucky Derby Day and will be televised live as part of the Derby Day coverage on "2Day At The Kentucky Derby" on ESPN2.

The release comes during the same week's announcement of Three Chimneys Farm entering in a sponsorship agreement with Churchill Downs with the $100,000 2-year-old race formerly known as the WHAS-11 Stakes. Also run on Derby Day, the race will now be named the Three Chimneys Juvenile.