Ten Things You Should Know: King’s Bishop

By Kevin Martin, Hello Race Fans Contributing Editor

1) The King’s Bishop is held at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, New York. It is restricted to 3-year-olds.

2) The race is run at 7 furlongs and is one of only two unrestricted Grade 1 sprints for 3-year-olds (the Malibu Stakes is the other — it is run at Santa Anita in California at the end of the year).

3) The inaugural King’s Bishop was run in 1984, and every running since has been at the same distance over the same race course.

4) The race received a Grade 3 status in 1987. It was upgraded to Grade 2 in 1992 and became a Grade 1 in 1999.

5) The King’s Bishop is named for the 1973 Carter Handicap winner. The son of Round Table won 11 times from 28 starts in his career.

6) In 1996, the second and third place winners, Elusive Quality and Distorted Humor respectively, would go on to sire the 2003 and 2004 Kentucky Derby winners: Funny Cide and Smarty Jones respectively.

7) The winner in 1996, Honour and Glory, also won that year’s Met Mile against older horses in stakes record time.

8) Lost in the Fog won the 2005 King’s Bishop during a campaign that earned him that year’s Eclipse Award for Champion Sprinter. It was the only Grade 1 win of Lost in the Fog’s career.

9) Jockey Mike Smith won three straight editions of the race from 1991 to 1993 (Take Me Out, Salt Lake, and Mi Cielo).

10) The gritty Hard Spun won his first and only Grade 1 race in the 2007 King’s Bishop. Earlier in the year, Hard Spun had finished second in the Kentucky Derby and Haskell. In the last start of his career, he finished second behind Curlin in the 2007 Breeder’s Cup Classic.