The Asian Mile Challenge is a series of four one-mile (eight furlongs) Thoroughbred horse races. Created in 2005, the series was launched with two races, one in Hong Kong, the other in Japan. In 2006, the Melbourne Racing Club of Australia and the Dubai Racing Club of the United Arab Emirates joined the series.
Raced approxinmately four weeks apart between March and June, a US$1 million bonus is given to any horse who wins two legs of the Asian Mile Challenge. In 2006, the Hong Kong-based horse Bullish Luck collected the bonus after winning the Champions Mile and the Yasuda Kinen.
The Asian Mile Challenge now consists of four Grade I races:
- Futurity Stakes at Caulfield Racecourse, Melbourne
- Dubai Duty Free Stakes at Meydan Racecourse in Dubai
- Champions Mile at Sha Tin Racecourse, Hong Kong
- Yasuda Kinen at Tokyo Racecourse, Tokyo
Famous quotes containing the words asian, mile and/or challenge:
“We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10,000 miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“For half a mile from the shore it was one mass of white breakers, which, with the wind, made such a din that we could hardly hear ourselves speak.... This was the stormiest sea that we witnessed,—more tumultuous, my companion affirmed, than the rapids of Niagara, and, of course, on a far greater scale. It was the ocean in a gale, a clear, cold day, with only one sail in sight, which labored much, as if it were anxiously seeking a harbor.... It was the roaring sea, thalassa exeessa.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Our challenge as parents is to be patient enough to allow our children to take ten minutes to do something that would take us two seconds. We need to allow our children to develop what I call their “struggle muscle.” This is developed the same way any other muscle develops, through regular exercise.”
—Stephanie Martson (20th century)