Pocahontas Stakes

The Pocahontas Stakes is a Grade III American Thoroughbred horse race for two-year-old fillies over a distance of 1 1⁄16 one mile on the dirt scheduled annually in September at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.

History

The race was first held on Thanksgiving Day, 27 November 1969, and was fittingly named for Pocahontas, the daughter of Native-American chief Powhatan, who aided the early American settlers, and the same-named Pocahontas, the 19th-century British-bred thoroughbred mare, who had a great influence on the breed.

The stakes race remained a Thanksgiving Day event until 1982, when it was moved to the early weeks of the Fall Meet.

The event was first classified as a Grade III race in 2005 and a Grade II race in 2010. In 2020, the event was downgraded back to Grade III.

The distance of the race originated at 7 furlongs and was run at that distance for the first 13 years, from 1969 to 1981. The distance was changed to one mile beginning in 1982 and continued at that distance through 2012. In 2013, the distance was increased to 1 1⁄16 miles. In 2020 and 2023, the event was reduced back to 1 mile.

The event was split into divisions eight times, with the last occurrence in 1983.

The new scheduling allowed the Pocahontas to become a major prep for the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies. It is a "Win and You're In" race in the Breeders' Cup Challenge series.

The Pocahontas is the first step on the annual Road to the Kentucky Oaks, a points system to qualify for the Kentucky Oaks at Churchill Downs in the spring of the following year.