NYRA continues juvenile bonus program

For the second straight year, The New York Racing Association (NYRA) will

offer a $100,000 bonus to the connections of any juvenile who breaks his or her

maiden during the Aqueduct winter/spring or Belmont Park spring/summer meets and

goes on to win a graded stakes at Saratoga, Belmont Park or Aqueduct in 2013.

The NYRA Reorganization Board approved the bonus program during its meeting on

Wednesday.

"The bonus was a tremendous success last year," said Rick Violette Jr.,

president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. "It generated

about 15 additional maiden races at Belmont, and certainly spurred significant

interest in NYRA's 2-year-old program. We're pleased that NYRA is offering the

bonus again this year."

In 2012, Bern Identity and Shanghai Bobby collected the $100,000 bonus after

respectively winning the Grade 2 Sanford and Grade 2 Hopeful, both at Saratoga.

Bern Identity broke his maiden on June 1 at Belmont in his second start, while

Shanghai Bobby debuted a winner on April 19 at Aqueduct and went on to earn the

Eclipse Award for champion two-year-old male.

"New York having a quality two-year-old racing program is essential to

American racing," said Todd Pletcher, trainer of Shanghai Bobby. "It seemed like

it had slowed down in recent years in that horses were debuting later in the

year, but the bonus program has created a great incentive for horsemen to

prepare their horses to run earlier in the year. It showed last year when you

had a horse like Shanghai Bobby run in April and go on to win the Eclipse. What

the bonus has done is assure horsemen there would be plenty of two-year-old

maiden races, which has encouraged them to bring two-year-olds to New York."

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