Ky Downs Ladies Turf Sprint now a G1

12 stakes in the state receive promotions for 2026

By the Kentucky HBPA (Coady Media/Cady Coulardot photo above of Ag Bullet winning the 2025 Never Say Die Bourbon Ladies Turf Sprint under Luis Saez)

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf Sprint is the only new Grade 1 stakes for 2026, with the annual changes to the United States’ premier races announced Friday by the American Graded Stakes Committee.

Overall, 12 races in the state were upgraded for the new year.

Read the American Graded Stakes Committee press release

Kentucky Downs had two other stakes elevated, the Nashville Derby Invitational and the Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf picking up Grade 2 status for the coming year. However, the Franklin-Simpson for 3-year-old sprinters was moved back to a Grade 2 after two years as the first Grade 1 stakes in Kentucky Downs’ history.

The Richard Baltas-trained Ag Bullet won consecutive runnings of the 6 1/2-furlong Kentucky Downs Ladies Turf Sprint, setting course records both years. With Never Say Die bourbon the title sponsor this year, Ag Bullet held off Simply in Front, who in her next start won Keeneland’s Grade 1 First Lady. Ag Bullet defeated males at Saratoga to win the Grade 1 Jaipur. The gun-metal gray was second in this year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (G1) won by the 3-year-old filly Shisospicy, who was coming off victory in Kentucky Downs’ Music City (G2), and third in the 2024 Breeders’ Cup.

Showing the upward trajectory of Kentucky racing, Churchill Downs and Keeneland had several upgrades apiece with no downgrades. Churchill Downs’ Shawnee and Unbridled Sidney were awarded Grade 2 status, with the Hanshin and Maxfield Stakes upgraded to G3. At Keeneland: The Bryan Station, Doubledogdare and Giants Causeway now are G2, with the Indian Summer and Limestone G3. 

Ellis Park lost its only graded stakes, with the Pucker Up for 3-year-old fillies on turf moved from G3 to listed. However, Ellis Park did have two stakes gaining listed status with the Jeff Hall Memorial Sprint and the Kentucky Downs Preview Ladies Turf Sprint. Other Kentucky stakes getting listed status: Churchill Downs’ Leslie’s Lady Overnight Stakes, Anchorage Overnight and Fern Creek; Keeneland’s Myrtlewood; Kentucky Downs’ Untapable, and Turfway’s Holiday Inaugural. Listed status is important because those races are the pipeline to becoming graded.

The graded-stakes committee reviewed 942 U.S. stakes with a purse of at least $75,000, assigning graded status to 410. As the committee continues to trim races after years of what was considered graded-stakes inflation, there are five fewer graded stakes for 2026.

Eleven graded races overall were upgraded and 13 downgraded. That includes the other Grade 1 stakes demoted to Grade 2: Santa Anita’s Frank Kilroe.