Breeders' Cup welcomes your participation in The Breeders’ Cup Writing Awards honoring excellence in coverage of the Breeders’ Cup World Championships.  There are two awards that will celebrate outstanding writing:.

• The Joe Hirsch Award for Outstanding News Reporting

• The Bill Leggett Award for Outstanding Feature Writing

These awards are based on coverage of the 2019 and the 2020 Breeders’ Cup World Championships. Since there were no awards issued for 2019 works, we are combining writing submissions from the past two years into 2019-2020 awards.

To enter the competition for these awards, contestants may submit a maximum of two submissions per category: a choice from 2019 and a choice from 2020 in Outstanding News reporting, and a choice from 2019 and a choice from 2020 for Outstanding Feature writing. Please note that two submissions in one category from the same year will not be accepted.

 Deadline for Entry is Thursday, October 7, 2021

Joe Hirsch Award for Outstanding News Reporting

This competition is open to those affiliated with a newspaper, magazine or an internet site. The submissions for the Joe Hirsch Award for Outstanding News Reporting are limited to a maximum of (2) submissions, one from each year. The submission must be a focused recap article of a 2019 or a 2020 Breeders’ Cup World Championships race. You may enter one article written and submitted for the corresponding day of Friday, Nov. 1 or Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019, and one article written and submitted for the corresponding day of Friday, Nov. 6 or Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020. You may also choose just to submit one article from either 2019 or 2020. Please include a timestamp web link to your articles. (It is understood that articles submitted under deadline circumstances may not have been posted by editors in a timely manner.)

Bill Leggett Award for Outstanding Feature Writing

The competition is open to those affiliated with a newspaper, magazine or an internet site. The submissions for the Bill Leggett Award for Outstanding Feature Writing are limited to a maximum of two (2) submissions, one from each year. Each submission  must be focused on some aspect of the 2019 or the 2020 Breeders’ Cup: an advance story on a race, an individual profile, column, or a business article. You may also choose just to submit one article from either 2019 or 2020.  Please also include the publication date of your article.

The winners of these awards will be announced at the National Turf Writers And Broadcasters Dinner at The Brigantine Del Mar on Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021.

Submission instructions are as follows:

Two steps: 1) Cover Letter and 2) Clean Documents for Judging

1)    Write an email cover letter to jim@breederscup.com

a)  Indicate the category for competition (News Reporting or Feature)

b)  Name of publication

c)  Headline of article

d)  Include a weblink to the article in your cover letter. The link is not for judging purposes, just proof of published work. We need a clean Word document for judging.

2)    Attach your Clean Documents of your submissions in Microsoft Word document or a similar format. For a News Reporting submission, please place a timestamp at the top of the article. For Feature Reporting submissions, please place the date of publication. However, do not place your byline or the name of your publication in any of your clean documents that will be judged.

Submission deadline is Thursday, Oct. 7, 2021.

Thanks very much, and Good Luck to all competitors.