Interesting Question
 

They say that Saturday's Whitney will include 7 Grade 1 winners. I can't recall a race with that in my memory. I was thinking maybe a BC race might have, but not even sure about that. I'm not sure a non-BC race ever had 7 Grade 1 Stakes winners in the field. Actually, I'm not sure a BC race had 7 Grade 1 winners in a field.

Anybody got a better memory than me ?

I know they've had 4, 5 and 6.

1998 Breeders Cup Classic. The only non Grade 1 winner was Swain.

Silver Charm
Touch Gold
Skip Away
Coronado's Quest
Awesome Again
Victory Gallop
Gentleman
Arch

Best field ever assembled.

Every starter in the 1988 BC Classic was a grade 1 winner going in to the race. Alysheba, Seeking the Gold, Personal Flag, Forty Niner, Waquoit, Cutlass Reality, Slew City Slew, and Cryptoclearance.

Are you including Derby's in this conversation? 2012 had 9-10 in the gate.

I was thinking more of non-BC and non-TC races. I think some of the reason we don't see this much, if at all, is that people avoid running their good horses against others because of location (East Coast/West Coast/KY) or just because they want the best shot to win. They don't want to run against fields like this until the BC.

The 1994 Woodward had Holy Bull, Colonial Affair, Devil His Due, Go For Gin, Betrando, Tinners Way, and Pistols and Roses as Grade 1 winners.

aint that DaTruth

Woodward will have 9 G1 winners when the 7 from here comeback along with the new G1 winner Liam's Map and then Palace Malice joins the party.