The Illinois Department of Agriculture has announced that the 2016 Grand Circuit Review Stakes for both two-year-olds (#114) and three-year-olds (#113) have been cancelled until further notice due to uncertain state funding and few nominated horses.

Nomination payments will be refunded to all of those who nominated horses to the 2016 two-year-old and three-year-old events. Further, the yearling payment that is due on May 15 will not be accepted.

Please note that there will be racing at both the Illinois State Fair and the Du Quoin State Fair, and those nomination payments are due April 15. Nomination forms can be found here.

The plan is to race four days in Springfield (Friday and Saturday, Aug. 12 and 13 and Tuesday and Wednesday, Aug. 16 and 17) and two days in Du Quoin (Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 27 and 28).

Although purse amounts for the state fairs have not been finalized due to the lack of a state budget, it can be confirmed that the 2016 state fair purses will be at least the same, and very likely higher, than they were last year.

(Illinois Dept. of Agriculture )