BREEDERS' CUP TO SWITCH SITES.Byline: Kevin Modesti Daily News Staff Writer Five months before the Breeders' Cup The Breeders' Cup World Championships is an annual series of Grade I thoroughbred horse races operated by Breeders' Cup Limited, a company formed in 1982 by a consortium of North American racing organizations, led by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. races, a significant scratch was announced Thursday. Scratch Woodbine Racetrack Woodbine Racetrack in the northwestern suburb of Rexdale in Toronto, Ontario is the only horseracing track in North America which stages, or is capable of staging, thoroughbred and standardbred horseracing programs on the same day. , in Toronto, as host of international thoroughbred racing's biggest annual event. Breeders' Cup Limited said it is giving up on Woodbine's efforts to settle a threatened labor dispute and will name a new site for the Oct. 26 championship by mid-June. The Breeders' Cup is expected to turn to Churchill Downs Churchill Downs, Ky.: see Louisville. , the Louisville, Ky., track that hosts huge crowds at the Kentucky Derby Kentucky Derby One of the classic U.S. Thoroughbred horse races. It was established in 1875 and run annually on the first Saturday in May at Churchill Downs track in Louisville, Ky. With the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes, it makes up U.S. racing's coveted Triple Crown. and put on Breeders' Cups in 1988, 1991 and 1994. The Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. reported that '89 and '92 site Gulfstream Park, near Miami, is another possibility. But Breeders' Cup management's bad experience there in '92 makes that hard to believe. Hollywood Park officials, preparing to host the Breeders' Cup in '97, said they do not expect to be asked this year. Santa Anita is out because its new turf course will still be growing in this fall. Woodbine woodbine, name for several vines, among them honeysuckle and Virginia creeper. woodbine Any of many species of vines belonging to various flowering-plant families, especially the Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia, family Vitaceae) of was to be the first non-U.S. track to host the seven-race, $11 million Breeders' Cup in the event's 13 years. ``We deeply regret this decision to move the Breeders' Cup Championship from Toronto, but without the necessary assurances that the event can be run free of labor disruption, we have no other alternative,'' Breeders' Cup president Ted Bassett said. ``We have no guarantees that services at the racetrack as well as in the metropolitan Toronto area will not be impaired by labor action during the time we plan to be in the city and prudent management dictates that we not expose our championship and our visitors to such an environment. ``This is a great disappointment not only because of the substantial work and planning already accomplished, but also because of the tremendous support we have received from the Ontario Thoroughbred breeders and owners throughout the years,'' the statement said. The Ontario Federation of Labor has chosen Oct. 25 and 26 to protest the policies of Ontario Premier Mike Harris, whose Conservative party will hold its annual convention that weekend. In addition to the OFL OFL Ontario Federation of Labour OFL Off Line OFL Overall Foreign Loss OFL Out For Lunch Ofl Opaque Flecks in Lens OFL Office of Freight Logistics OFL Over Fill Launch (multimode cable LANs) OFL Open Font License protest, the Breeders' Cup could have faced problems from parimutuel ticket sellers, who are locked out by the Ontario Jockey Club. |
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