This will be a tense weekend for the connections of Lt. Hopeful, who is currently ranked second on the also-eligible list for the Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint.
Lt. Hopeful is currently at Hollywood Park and owner Syd Belzberg and trainer Janet Armstrong were nervously awaiting word on Friday from Breeders' Cup officials whether Lt. Hopeful can gain a place in the 14-horse field.
"I haven't asked today," Armstrong said.
Grade 3 Bourbon Stakes winner Rogue Romance, pre-entered in both the Breeders' Cup Juvenile and Juvenile Turf, will run in the Juvenile, said Martin O'Dowd, an adviser to owner Catesby Clay.
Although the Juvenile was listed as his first preference at the time pre-entries were made Monday, his connections still had been giving thought to running in the Juvenile Turf, given that Rogue Romance was proven on grass, where all three of his starts, and two of his wins, have come.
Trainer Steve Margolis knows something about winning the Breeders' Cup Sprint. He turned that trick with his first and only Breeders' Cup starter when he sent out Cajun Beat to upset the 2003 Sprint at Santa Anita.
Margolis will try to duplicate that feat when he comes back with another outsider in this year's Sprint -- Richard, Bert, and Elaine Klein's homebred Cash Refund, who turned in his final major tune-up for race by drilling five furlongs in 1:00.32 seconds in company with stablemate Home Run Bertie on Friday morning at Churchill Downs.
Grade 1 Hollywood Gold Cup winner Awesome Gem is headed toward Friday's 1 3/4-mile Breeder's Cup Marathon on the Churchill main track, rather than the Saturday's Dirt Mile, said Jeff Lifson, vice president of Midwest operations for West Point Thoroughbreds.
After being pre-entered in both races Monday, with the Dirt Mile listed as first preference, the switch comes as somewhat of a surprise.
Zenyatta will be profiled on the CBS program "60 Minutes" on Sunday ahead of her attempt to win back-to-back Breeders' Cup Classics and end her career a perfect 20-0. In a preview of the segment, jockey Mike Smith says that if she can accomplish that feat, "she could arguably go down as one of the great, if not the greatest, horses of all time."
"Better than Secretariat?" asks interviewer Bob Simon.
Five Breeders’ Cup horses stabled at Saratoga put in workouts on Friday, including top Dirt Mile contender Tizway, who went five furlongs in 1:00.91 over the Oklahoma training track.
According to trainer James Bond, Tizway, winner of the Grade 2 Kelso Breeders’ Cup in his last start, went his first quarter in 13 seconds and got his final quarter in 23.60 seconds.
“He went great,” Bond said. “Physically, he couldn’t be any better. I can’t tell you how great I feel.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – This normally happens in the spring at Churchill Downs, not in the fall. A race meet opens to tremendous anticipation of what lies straight ahead, but it is usually the Kentucky Derby that awaits, not the Breeders’ Cup.
NEW YORK – If Zenyatta wins the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Saturday, finishing her career 20 for 20 with a victory over the best horses she has ever faced at the iconic American showcase of 10 furlongs on the dirt at Churchill Downs, it will be a spectacular moment in all of racing history. It would of course also rightly make her a virtually unanimous choice as the nation’s Horse of the Year, an honor for which she finished second in the balloting in 2008 and 2009.