Sunland Park has released its Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse stakes schedules and first condition book for its 2011-12 meet, which opens on December 6.

Located in south central New Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas, Sunland Park will run 55 stakes – 35 for Thoroughbreds and 20 for Quarter Horses – worth more than $5.7 million in purses.

As it has been since its first running in 2003, the 1 1/8-mile, $800,000 Sunland Derby (G3) for 3-year-olds on the Triple Crown trial will be the centerpiece of the track's schedule. The richest Thoroughbred race in New Mexico history and the state's only graded Thoroughbred stakes, the Sunland Derby has traditionally drawn the top-rated 3-year-olds from throughout the country.

Past Sunland Derby winners include 2005 winner Thor's Echo, who eventually won the Breeders' Cup Sprint Stakes (G1) the following season, and Mine That Bird used a fourth-place finish in the '09 Sunland Derby as a springboard to his victory in that season's Grade 1, $2-million Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs.

This season's Sunland Derby will be run on Sunday, March 25. Other prominent Thoroughbred stakes set for that day include the 1 1/16-mile, $200,000 Sunland Park Oaks for 3-year-old fillies, the 6 1/2-furlong, $100,000 Bill Thomas Memorial Stakes, and the 1-mile, $100,000-added Harry W. Henson Handicap for fillies and mares.

Also , the purse for this season's 1 1/16-mile Borderland Derby, the traditional Sunland Derby prep, has been increased to $150,000. The stakes will be run on February 25.

Sunland Park's stakes schedule includes 13 New Mexico-bred Thoroughbred stakes and nine state-bred Quarter Horse stakes, all with purses of at least $110,000.

Sunland's open Quarter Horse stakes schedule is topped by the 400-yard, $350,000 Championship at Sunland Park (G1) on December 31. The stakes was first contested in 2001, and its past winners include AQHA world champions A Ransom ('01) and Streakin Sin Tacha (2002), and New Mexico-bred AQHA divisional champions Gotta Get (2006) and First Moonflash (2008-09).

Other prominent Quarter Horse stakes at Sunland Park include the 300-yard, $250,000-est. New Mexican Spring Futurity (RG2) on April 8, and the 300-yard, $250,000-est. West Texas Futurity (G1) on April 15.

In addition, Sunland will host two Bank of America Challenge Quarter Horse stakes, the 870-yard, $55,000-added Red Cell New Mexico Distance Challenge (G2) on April 1, and the 440-yard, $110,000-added Bank of America New Mexico Challenge Championship (G1) on April 8.

Also, for the first time this season there will be three weeks between trials and finals for Quarter Horse stakes.

For more information on Sunland Park's 77-day meet, which runs through April 17, 2012, visit the track's website at www.sunland-park.com, or call the track at (575) 874-5200.