GET ready for the thrilling Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission (BGLC)/Thoroughbred Owers and Breeders Association (TOBA) Juvenile Dash on August 1, 2024, at Caymanas Park. This event kicks off the revamped 2024-2025 BGLC-TOBA Millionaires Series, featuring 15 races for two- and three-year-old horses.

Thanks to the historic $15-million sponsorship from the BGLC and TOBA, winning owners can earn a $1-million bonus.

To be eligible the winning horse must have been entered, sold, nominated, or passed through a TOBA sale in the preceding year (or two years prior for three-year-olds).

Should owners of horses not entered, sold, nominated nor passed through any such TOBA sale desire to compete for the $1-million bonus, a $150,000 eligibility fee must be paid to TOBA before the close of entry for each race.

As such, if the bonus-eligibility fee is not paid, any horse not entered, sold, nominated nor passed through a TOBA sale would only be competing for purse money, or incentive, as advertised by Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Limited (SVREL).

The BGLC-TOBA $1-million bonus per race is separate and apart from any purse money, or incentive, advertised by promoting company (SVREL).

The Millionaires Series One features six races for two-year-old, native-bred maidens. These races include the BGLC/TOBA Juvenile Dash (three furlongs-straight) on August 1; the BGLC/TOBA Heroes Sprint (five and a half furlongs) on October 21; the BGLC/TOBA Jamboree Sprint (six furlongs) on November 9; and three races in December (dates and distances to be confirmed).

The Millionaires Series Two features two races which are for native-bred and imported two-year-olds (winners and maidens); they are The Hover Craft Sprint (six furlongs) on October 26 and The Mr Sensational (seven furlongs) on November 30.

The Millionaires Series Three features Four races for native-bred three-year-old maidens. These races are scheduled for September, October, November, and December. Dates and distances are to be decided.

The Millionaires Series Four consists of three races, and they are for native-bred, three-year-old winners (non-winners of two-races) and imported three-year-old maidens.

This new, rich and exciting four-part series of races underwent a careful process of consultation with SVREL’s racing office and horsemen. In every instance the horse population and readiness of runners were factors taken into consideration to, as best as possible, not extract entrants from traditional big-purse races while striving to attract maximum starters worthy of competing for a $1-million bonus.

Series three and four, in particular, were added on the appeal of owners and trainers who would have invested heavily in not only locally bred horses but also imported animals who might not have developed sufficiently as two-year-olds in time to compete in series one or two.

The most thrilling aspect of the four-part BGLC-TOBA Millionaires Series is that it not only caters for deserving late-bloomers but also significantly rewards early, native-bred achievers who get two bites of the Millionaires’ cherry, should they be able to beat imported runners in either the Hover Craft Sprint or Mr Sensational.

Series one winners taking their chances against imported runners in series two could possibly win $2 million for their owners in the BGLC-TOBA Millionaires Series before heading into the richest two-year-old race of the season, the $4-million Jamaica Two-Year-Old Stakes, on Boxing Day.

The revamped 2024-2025 BGLC-TOBA Millionaires Series for two and three-year-old horses is, by far, the most lucrative and far-reaching ever to have been conceptualised in the history of local racing.

The aim and goal of the BGLC-TOBA Millionaires Series is to have breeders enter, in sufficient quantity, quality horses at TOBA’s annual sale, afterwards quickly rewarding owners and incentivising them to maintain their support of TOBA, especially its importation of fillies through the $20-million Jamaica Racing Commission Horseracing Stimulus Fund.

It is through this fund that TOBA embarked in 2023 to purchase 10 Canada-bred fillies who, it is hoped, along with others imported privately, will make their way to the breeding sheds after their racing careers are over, in order to start a rejuvenation of the local breeding industry and horse racing in general.