Seagram Cup Stakes

Seagram Cup Stakes
Grade III race
LocationWoodbine Racetrack
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Inaugurated1903
Race typeThoroughbred - Flat racing
Websitewww.woodbineentertainment.com/qct/default.asp
Race information
Distance1+116 miles (8.5 furlongs)
SurfacePolytrack
TrackLeft-handed
QualificationThree-year-olds & Up
WeightAllowances
Purse$115,065 (2016)

The Chinese Cultural Centre Seagram Cup Stakes is a Thoroughbred horse race run annually during the last week of July/first week of August at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. A Grade III event, it is open to horses Three years old and up. Raced over a distance of one and one-sixteenth miles, the race currently offers a purse of $115,065.

The Seagram Cup was inaugurated at the Old Woodbine Racetrack in 1903. A race on dirt, it was named in honor of owner/breeder Joseph E. Seagram whose Seagram Stables dominated Canadian racing at the time and who had won Canada's most prestigious race, the Queen's Plate, eight consecutive times between 1891 and 1898. With the cessation of Thoroughbred racing at Old Woodbine Racetrack, the Seagram Cup was moved to the new Woodbine Racetrack and in 1959 became a race on turf.

In 1998 the Seagram Cup reverted to being run permanently on dirt with the 2007 edition marking the first time it would be raced on the new synthetic Polytrack surface.

Over the years the Seagram Cup has been contested at various distances:
On dirt:

  • 1+116 miles : 1903–1924 (Old Woodbine Racetrack)
  • 1+12 miles : 1925–1926 (Old Woodbine Racetrack)
  • 1+18 miles : 1928–1930 (Old Woodbine Racetrack)
  • 1+116 miles : 1934–1958 (Old Woodbine Racetrack), 1959–1963 and 1998 to present at Woodbine Racetrack
  • 1+14 miles : 1980–1981 Greenwood Raceway

On turf:

  • 1+116 miles : 1959–1963 (Woodbine Racetrack)
  • 1+14 miles : 1964–1979, 1982–1993 (Woodbine Racetrack)
  • 1+38 miles : 1994–1997 (Woodbine Racetrack)