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According to the Blood-Horse article, the 4 new races are not eligible for graded status for a couple of years.
I wonder why NYRA wouldn't simply retool some of their other 3yo turf stakes to exploit the graded status already in place. For example, the Jamaica was a Grade 1 in the first decade of the 21st century and the graded Saranac has (or had) been a mainstay of the Saratoga meet.
As it stands, this triple is basically the Lexington, Saranac, and Lawrence Realization (which originally was the US answer to the famed St. Leger in England) using the 1980s stakes calendar.
The idea of a triple has also been done before. Arlington had what was called a "Mid-American Triple", which was made up of the Arlington Classic, the American Derby, and the Secretariat. At one point, there was a $500K bonus attached. Never seemed to take off, perhaps because the purse money wasn't particularly lucrative or because of the focus on 3yo dirt races during most of the summer.
Colonial Downs had a strong hand in their brief history when they had a rich double made up of the Colonial Turf Cup and the Virginia Derby. They then teamed with Arlington adding the Secretariat and offered an unheard of $5 million bonus (with the catch being the horse had to win the BC Turf, too).
The first two races unfortunately died suddenly when Colonial Downs hit the skids, but given those races short-lived, but strong popularity, this NY version might prove to be successful.
However, I'm not sure if I buy into Martin Panza's "American racing is heading towards turf" outlook. I think it is very likely, as ever, that these races will be dominated by Euro runners whether imported to stay or "raiders" making a quick score. That in itself is not a bad thing and if the series doesn't make a dent in the breeding industry it might compel more American trainers with the means to follow Chad Brown and his owners' example and look to the European yearling sales for unraced stock (e.g., Newspaperofrecord (IRE), Demarchelier (GB)).
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