High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Withers Stakes is an American Thoroughbred horse race for three-year-olds willing to compete one mile on the dirt. Held at Aqueduct Racetrack every year at the end of April (one week before the Kentucky Derby), it is a Grade III event, and offers a purse of $150,000. While it was once a prep for the Kentucky Derby, today horses never run back so quickly and it has declined in prestige and importance. In 1956, the Withers Stakes was contested at a mile and a sixteenth.