Seagram Cup Stakes

The Chinese Cultural Centre Seagram Cup Stakes is a Canadian Thoroughbred horse race run annually during the last week of July/first week of August at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Ontario. 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 ¹⁄₁₆ miles : 1903–1924 (Old Woodbine Racetrack)
•  1 ¹⁄₂ miles : 1925-26 (Old Woodbine Racetrack)
•  1 ¹⁄₈ miles : 1928–1930 (Old Woodbine Racetrack)
•  1 ¹⁄₁₆ miles : 1934–1958 (Old Woodbine Racetrack), 1959–1963 and 1998 to present at Woodbine Racetrack
•  1 ¹⁄₄ miles : 1980–1981 Greenwood Raceway

On turf:

•  1 ¹⁄₁₆ miles : 1959–1963 (Woodbine Racetrack)
•  1 ¹⁄₄ miles : 1964–1979, 1982–1993 (Woodbine Racetrack)
•  1 ³⁄₈ miles : 1994–1997 (Woodbine Racetrack)

Records

Speed record:

• 1:41.40 - Terremoto (1998) (at  1 ¹⁄₁₆ miles on dirt)
• 2:00.60 - Sky Classic (1991) (at  1 ¹⁄₄ miles on turf)

Most wins by a jockey:

• 7 - Sandy Hawley (1974, 1976, 1978, 1979, 1988, 1989, 1996)

Most wins by a trainer:

• 4 - James E. Day (1986, 1988, 1989, 1991)

Most wins by an owner:

• 6 - Sam-Son Farm (1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1996, 2014)

Winners of the Seagram Cup Stakes

Earlier winners