{"id":32082,"date":"2023-08-27T13:41:01","date_gmt":"2023-08-27T19:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/downs-at-albuquerque-opens-live-racing-season-on-friday\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:51:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:51:50","slug":"downs-at-albuquerque-opens-live-racing-season-on-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/downs-at-albuquerque-opens-live-racing-season-on-friday\/","title":{"rendered":"Downs at Albuquerque opens live racing season on Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Horses
Horses break from the starting gate during a race at Albuquerque Downs, which opens its 2023 live racing season on Friday, Sept. 1.<\/span>Albuquerque Downs<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

ALBUQUERQUE \u2013 Another season of live thoroughbred and quarter horse racing in the state of New Mexico gets underway this week when the Downs at Albuquerque opens Thursday for a 35-day season.<\/p>\n

Opening day of the season will be highlighted by the first of three Marathon Claiming Stakes races, with a guaranteed purse of $20,000. The series consists of three races for older thoroughbreds racing at various distances, ranging from a mile to a mile and a quarter. The series continues with the $25,000 Billy Powell Claiming Stakes on Saturday, Oct. 7 and concludes with the Con Jackson Claiming Stakes, held on closing day Sunday, Oct. 29.<\/p>\n

Among the meet\u2019s highlight races this season will be the Grade 1, $350,000 Downs at Albuquerque Fall Quarter Horse Championship, scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 15.<\/p>\n

Danjer captured the Fall Championship last year under jockey Francisco Calderon, who is one of the top riders on the quarter horse scene this season at Ruidoso Downs, which wraps up its season on Monday.<\/p>\n

The Downs at Albuquerque will celebrate its 85th season of live racing. The track opened on Oct. 9, 1938. This season\u2019s added purse money distribution in stakes races will top more than $2.6 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an exciting time here,\u201d said Albuquerque Downs racing secretary Jim Collins. \u201cWe\u2019ve got an overflow of horses coming in from all across the southwest on the backstretch, and it\u2019s really good to see how the state of racing in New Mexico has really bounced back in the past couple of years.<\/p>\n

In addition to the $350,000 Downs at Albuquerque Fall QH Championship, the track will host the Grade 2 New Mexico State Fair Quarter Horse Futurity, with a guaranteed purse of $500,000 that will likely top $1 million.<\/p>\n

\"Post
Post times and dates for the live season at Albuquerque Downs (Albuquerque Downs)<\/span>Albuquerque Downs<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Post
Post times and dates for the Albuquerque Downs racing season. (Albuquerque Downs)<\/span>Albuquerque Downs<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThere\u2019s already a large number of horses which have nominated for the Futurity, so that\u2019s exciting to see as well,\u201d Collins said. \u201cThe state breeding and racing industry has really come around well for that race.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s opening featured contest, the first round of the Claiming Stakes Series, features a field of 12 entrants, led by Kirk Sutherland\u2019s Surprisinglyperfect, a 15-time winner from 69 lifetime starts with earnings of more than $230,000. The 9-year-old Kentucky-bred is still looking for his first win in 2023 and is coming off a fourth-place finish in his most recent start July 29 at Canterbury Downs in Shakopee, Minn.<\/p>\n

Listed as the 5-to-2 morning line favorite, Surprisinglyperfect is trained by Jose Silva Jr., and will be ridden by Enrique Garcia. The race is the fourth of a nine-race program<\/a> and has a scheduled post time of 7:20 p.m.<\/p>\n

Post times and race dates vary from week to week at Albuquerque Downs, with first post either at 1:30 p.m. or under the lights at 6:05 p.m. Fans can watch and wager on the races from Albuquerque Downs at SunRay Park and Casino. Check out their official website<\/a> at abqdowns.com for post times and information on the racing schedule.<\/p>\n

For information on the upcoming season of live racing at the Downs at Albuquerque, including results and entries, check out their official page<\/a> at equibase.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

offer more than $2.6 million in stakes race purses this season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[3419,3411,799,1250,1496,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-32082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-albuquerque-downs","tag-american-quarter-horse-association","tag-farmington","tag-horse-racing","tag-ruidoso-downs","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81668,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32082\/revisions\/81668"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32082"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=32082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}