Sunland Park will kick off its 65th live race meet on Friday, January 3.

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SUNLAND PARK, NM—DECEMBER 23, 2024—Post time during the 55-day season will be 12:25 p.m., with racing on all but opening week being held on a Thursday through Sunday basis, with closing day to be held on Sunday, April 6, 2025.

The opening day program on Friday, Jan. 3, will feature two thoroughbred stakes races: the $90,000 New Mexico State Racing Commission Stakes and the $65,000 KLAQ Stakes.

Loaded with rich stakes races, Sunland Park offers some of the most attractive races for Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses in the Southwest. The calendar features 38 stakes races worth purses of $4.25 million.

Among the top races for Quarter Horses this season are the $350,000 Championship at Sunland Park (Gr. III), which will be run on Sunday, Feb. 2. The world's best quarter horses will collide in the 23rd running of this 440-yard featured event.

Flash Bak, trained by Heath Taylor and ridden by Francisco Calderon, flew home in the final yards to win last year's race. The Missouri-bred son of Moonin The Eagle would go on to win or finish second in each of his next three starts, all stakes races over the rest of his 2024 campaign.

The $150,000-added New Mexican Spring Futurity and $100,000-added Grade II West Texas Futurity for two-year-old quarter Horses will be showcased on Saturday, April 5 as part of an enormous program which also features the $90,000 New Mexico Horse Breeders Association Quarter Horse Stakes, a restricted Grade II event.

The sparkling jewel of the lucrative season is the $400,000 Sunland Derby (Gr. III) to be run on Sunday, February 16, 2025. The Kentucky Derby prep race offers 20 qualifying points to the winner for entry to the 2025 Run for the Roses. The 20th edition of the one and one-sixteenth mile classic anchors a huge day of racing with six stakes races worth over $1 million in purse money.

The $250,000 Sunland Park Oaks, as well as the $100,000 Bill Thomas Memorial Stakes, the $100,000 Harry W. Henson Stakes, the $90,000 Peppers Pride Stakes and the $90,000 Red Hedeman Mile are also part of Sunland Park's biggest day.

Last year's Sunland Derby winner Stronghold parlayed that win into a hard-fought victory in the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby before finishing seventh in the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs. Trained by Phil D'Amato and owned by Eric and Sharon Waller, Stronghold finished his 3-year-old campaign with back-to-back second-place efforts in the Grade 3 Indiana Derby and the Grade 1 Pennsylvania Derby.

He finished his campaign with earnings of more than $920,000. Stronghold will run in the Grade 1 Malibu Stakes at Santa Anita Park on Thursday, Dec. 26.

Both the Sunland Derby (Gr. III) and Sunland Park Oaks will be Lasix-free events. Additionally, all Thoroughbred stakes races will be Lasix-free.

State-bred thoroughbreds will be in the spotlight when Sunland Park presents the $150,000 New Mexico Breeders' Derby and $150,000 New Mexico Breeders' Oaks will be run on Friday, March 28.

Some of the region's top 3-year-olds will compete in the $100,000 Riley Allison Derby at one mile on Friday, Jan. 17, in a prep race for the Grade III Sunland Derby. The $65,000 Borderplex Stakes, also scheduled for Friday, Jan. 17, features 3-year-old fillies in a prep for the Sunland Park Oaks.

A trio of lucrative thoroughbred stakes races headline a stellar closing day program. The $90,000 New Mexico State University Stakes and the $125,000 Mine That Bird Derby are followed by the 64th running of the enriched $200,000 Casa Ford Sunland Park Handicap at 9 furlongs on Sunday, April 6. Last year, jockey Luis Fuentes scored a narrow win aboard Presidential in the traditional closing day headliner.