The United Nations Stakes is an American Thoroughbred horse race held annually in July at Monmouth Park in Oceanport, New Jersey. The race is open to horses, age three and up, going one and three-eighths miles on the turf. A Grade I event, it currently offers a purse of $750,000. Until 2007, it was known as the United Nations Handicap.
Part of the Breeders' Cup Challenge series, the winner of the 2008 United Nations Stakes automatically qualified for the Breeders' Cup Turf.
Founded in 1953 at the Atlantic City Race Course in Mays Landing, New Jersey, the race was set at a distance of 1 3/16 miles until 1999 when it was changed to 1 3/8 miles. The first edition was won in track record time by the Chilean bred, Iceberg II, who was trained by future U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee Horatio Luro and ridden by Jorge Contreras.
From 1990 through 1997, it was known as the Caesars International. No race was held in 1998 and in 1999, it was shifted to Monmouth Park. In 2010, it will be in its 57th running.
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“Mankind owes to the child the best it has to give.”
—United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989.
“In the United States there’s a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)
“All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.”
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 25:32,33.
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)