Azeri Stakes
horse race
The Azeri Stakes is a Grade II American Thoroughbred horse race for fillies and mares that are four years old or older, over a distance of one and one-sixteenth miles on the dirt track held annually in March at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas. The event currently carries a purse of $400,000.
History
The inaugural running of the event was on 3 April 1987 as the Oaklawn Budweiser Breeders' Cup Handicap with sponsorship for Budweiser and the Breeders' Cup. The event was won by North Sider who was ridden by US Hall of Fame jockey Angel Cordero Jr. and trained by US Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas in a time of 1:421⁄5. North Sider later that year would capture US Champion Older Female Horse.
The event was upgraded to a Grade III event in 1990 but was downgraded back to Listed in 1995 for five runnings.
Budweiser continued sponsoring the event until 1995 while the Breeders' Cup sponsored the event until 2007 which reflected in the name of the event.
The event was renamed Azeri Stakes in 2005 to honor Azeri, the American Horse of the Year of 2002, and the American Champion Older Female Horse three years running: 2002, 2003, and 2004.
This race was upgraded to a Grade II for its 2014 running.
The public source identifies “Azeri Stakes” as horse race. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Azeri, Stakes and horse.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Azeri Stakes”, the useful work is to connect “horse race” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4832457. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1987, 1990, 1995 and 2007.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Azeri Stakes”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Azeri Stakes primary sources, Azeri Stakes archive and Azeri research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Azeri Stakes”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Azeri Stakes” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.