Charles Town Races will have two Grade 2 races and a listed stake in 2024 after seeing two of its open stakes upgraded by the American Graded Stakes Committee. Its two upgraded races were the only races in the Mid-Atlantic to move up, while five regional races were downgraded.

The Committee’s decisions for 2024 were released December 16. It reviewed 970 United States stakes with a purse of at least $75,000 and assigned graded status to 429, 11 fewer than were graded in 2023, and listed status to 213. Ten graded races were upgraded; nine new grade 2 races, and four new grade 3 races were identified. Fourteen new listed races and two new listed-restricted races were upgraded from non-listed black-type status.

Thirty graded races were downgraded; besides the five grade 1s, 10 grade 2, and 15 grade 3 races were demoted.  Thirteen listed races were downgraded to non-listed black-type status.

The number of graded stakes has been somewhat resistant to downturns in foal crop. For example, in 1995 there were 443 graded races contested, while in 2021, there were 429, a decline of just three percent. But the foal crops from 1990-1993 – the two-to-five-year-olds of 1995 – totaled more than 147,000, versus just 80,656 for the same age cohort in 2021. That’s a drop of over 45%.

Charles Town’s two movers were the Charles Town Oaks, which was upgraded to Grade 2 status for 2024, and the Robert Hilton Memorial Stakes, which received listed status.

Recent Charles Town Oaks winners include 2023 champ Vahva, who won the Grade 2 Raven Run at Keeneland in her next start; 2022 winner Society, who won the Grade 1 Cotillion in her follow-up; and 2021 victress Pauline’s Pearl, who won the Grade 1 La Troienne the following year.

The Hilton Memorial, a seven-furlong sprint for three-year-olds, went this year to the Michelle Lovell-trained Damon’s Mound, who followed up with a win in the Grade 2 Gallant Bob.

The Charles Town Classic is also a Grade 2 race and will maintain that status for 2024.

Elsewhere in the Mid-Atlantic, the picture wasn’t quite so pretty.

Two of the region’s Grade 1 races were dropped to Grade 2 status for 2024. The August win by Fev Rover, who won the E. P. Taylor (Canadian Grade 1) two starts later, couldn’t save the Beverly D. at Colonial Downs, which lost its Grade 1. The United Nations on the turf at Monmouth Park also was downgraded to Grade 2 for 2024.

Three other regional races also were downgraded. Those were the Penn Mile at Penn National, knocked down from Grade 2 to Grade 3 for 2024; and the BWI Turf Cup at Pimlico and Smarty Jones at Parx Racing, both of which were removed from the graded ranks and will be listed stakes in 2024.

The moves leave the Mid-Atlantic with 36 graded races, five of which are Grade 1 events. Those five are the Preakness at Pimlico; the Pennsylvania Derby and Cotillion at Parx; the Arlington Million at Colonial Downs; and the Haskell at Monmouth Park.

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