Uruguay’s Kentucky Derby – January 6

The UK has the Grand National, the US, the Kentucky Derby. Montevideo’s big horse-racing event is the Ramírez Prize raced every January 6 since 1889.

The Ramírez gets Uruguayans glued to their TV sets, and more than 8,000 head to the Maroñas horse racing stadium for the big event.

The spectacular art-deco stadium is something right out of a Scott Fitzgerald novel and well worth a visit in its own right.

The Grand José Pedro Ramírez Prize takes place every January 6. This year races start at  1.30pm and continue all day till past 10pm.

Throughout the year horse races are held every Sunday afternoon and sometimes on Fridays. There is a small entrance fee.

Fun facts about the Grand Ramirez Prize

• It’s been raced since 1889, the year before the Uruguayan Jockey Club was founded.
• José Pedro Ramírez was a lawyer, professor and journalist whose family owned the land on which the hippodrome was built. He was President of the Jockey Club at the time of his death.
• The race is always run on January 6 though it has been postponed three times because of major storms.
• The jockey who won the Ramírez most times is Uruguayan Irineo Leguisamo, considered the greatest rider in South America. He won the Ramírez the first time in 1926 and the last time almost forty years later in 1962! Leguisamo was from Salto, the same city as footballer Luis Suárez.
• The only woman to ride the Ramírez was the Argentinian Marina Lezcano who came in fourth in 1982. Lezcano won more than 600 titles throughout her career.
• The word in Spanish for a male jockey is ‘jockey’, for a woman jockey, it’s ‘jocketa’.
• The Ramírez is a clean race. There have never been scandals, disputes over winners or cases of doping.