The countdown is on for entries to the $5.8-million Breeders Crown events, to be raced Friday, October 28 and Saturday, October 29 at the Meadowlands Racetrack in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Supplemental entries for three-year-old and open events are due and payable by 12:00 noon on Monday, October 17 in the race office (1-877-782-2537) at the Meadowlands Racetrack. There are no supplements for the two-year-old races.

Foreign invitees to the Crown Trot must also declare by noon on Monday, October 17.

Regular entries for all other horses kept eligible by the required sustaining payments in 2016 are due Tuesday, October 18, by 9:00 a.m. at the Meadowlands race office.

Supplemental declaration amounts are listed below. Click here for more instructions on supplementing.

The starting fee is included in the supplemental amount. A minimum of half the amount of the supplemental fee, minus the starting fee, will be added to the purse. This one-time supplemental payment makes a horse eligible to all subsequent years’ Breeders Crown events under the normal schedule of payments.

Eliminations, if needed, will occur on Friday, October 21 and Saturday, October 22, both nights starting at the regular post time of 7:15 p.m.

Two-year-old elimination races, if necessary, will be raced for a minimum purse of $20,000 each. All other eliminations will race for a minimum of $25,000. If an elimination is required because more than 11, but less than 14 horses are entered, there will be a single elimination to ‘qualify’ only enough horses that can be accommodated by the number of positions in the front tier of the starting gate.

If there are eliminations, post positions in the final will be determined by an open draw with the exception that elimination winners in an order determined by lot, will draw for post positions number one (#1) through five (#5) in the final. All other finalists, including foreign invitees, will be placed in an open draw for the remaining post positions. Those horse(s) that receive a bye into the final will be in the open draw for post positions in the final. All horses that start in the final receive money.

The four Breeders Crown open events will be raced Friday, October 28 with a post time of 7:15 p.m. The remaining eight Breeders Crown finals will be raced on Saturday, October 29, with an early post time of 6:35 pm.

(Hambletonian Society)