The Achievement Stakes is a Canadian Thoroughbred horse race run annually at Woodbine Racetrack in Toronto, Ontario. An allowance race restricted to three-year-old horses foaled in the province of Ontario, it is held on the July 1 Canada Day holiday and run on Polytrack synthetic dirt over a distance of six furlongs. The race currently offers a purse of $150,000.
First run as the Achievement Handicap at the Fort Erie Racetrack in 1953, over the years the event has been run on both dirt and turf and at a variety of distances:
- 11/16 miles on dirt : 1953-1957, 1968-1979 (Fort Erie Racetrack)
- 1 mile on turf : 1958 (Fort Erie Racetrack), 1959-1966 (Woodbine Racetrack)
- 1 mile on turf : 1967 (Fort Erie Racetrack)
- 7 furlongs on dirt : 1980 (Woodbine Racetrack), 1981-1993 (Greenwood Raceway)
- 6 furlongs on dirt : 1994 to present (Woodbine Racetrack)
Read more about Achievement Stakes: Records, Winners of The Achievement Stakes
Famous quotes containing the words achievement and/or stakes:
“Parents can fail to cheer your successes as wildly as you expected, pointing out that you are sharing your Nobel Prize with a couple of other people, or that your Oscar was for supporting actress, not really for a starring role. More subtly, they can cheer your successes too wildly, forcing you into the awkward realization that your achievement of merely graduating or getting the promotion did not warrant the fireworks and brass band.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men.”
—William Empson (1906–1984)