After pandemic and chaos, Breeders' Cup still standing
The National Hockey League returned for the playoffs 4 1/2 months after a premature end to the regular season, and successfully completed a post-season that crowned the Tampa Bay Lightning as Stanley Cup champion.
The National Basketball Association, similarly, picked up with the playoffs 4 1/2 months after suspending regular-season play, and completed a season in which the Los Angeles Lakers reigned as champion.
Major League Baseball, scheduled to begin in late March, postponed the start of its season by nearly four months, severely reduced the number of games, and tweaked its playoff format, and eventually awarded a championship to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In a year when so much in life has been upended by a pandemic, the hold sports has as escapism has remained strong, and so too the commitment and desire to have the satisfaction of determining a champion.
Racing is no different. In a year that saw numerous tracks suspend operations in the spring, and have the Triple Crown postponed, run out of its usual order, and contested over 15 weeks instead of five, the Breeders’ Cup stands sentry, like Gibraltar, offering the rock-solid stability of a year-end event to crown the sport’s champions.
By nightfall Saturday at Keeneland, at the end of the 37th Breeders’ Cup, most of the sport’s year-end winners likely will have been determined, most notably Horse of the Year. The races in focus will be the Classic – in which 3-year-olds Authentic and Tiz the Law take on older horses Improbable, Maximum Security, and Tom’s d’Etat – and the Distaff, featuring a compelling showdown between 5-year-old Monomoy Girl and 3-year-old Swiss Skydiver.
This is one of the best Classic fields in the event’s history. Both the 3-year-old male title, and champion older dirt male, are likely to be determined by the outcome. A win by one of the top contenders against such an outstanding group could bring that horse both a divisional title and Horse of the Year.
But both Monomoy Girl and, especially, Swiss Skydiver – who has had a more extensive campaign and beat males in the Preakness – can put themselves in the Horse of the Year debate if they win the Distaff and chaos subsequently ensues in the Classic. Swiss Skydiver already has wrapped up the 3-year-old filly title, and Monomoy Girl can secure the older dirt female championship if she were to prevail.
The first of the nine Breeders’ Cup races Saturday also should determine an Eclipse Award winner, as nearly all the top contenders for the female sprint title – most notably Bell’s the One, Gamine, and Serengeti Empress – are set to go in the Filly and Mare Sprint. The field for that race was reduced Thursday when Inthemidstofbiz was scratched.
But what if Frank’s Rockette were to beat the boys later in the Sprint? That would at the least put her in the conversation, what with owning a victory against males, something no one in the Filly and Mare Sprint could boast.
The Filly and Mare Turf also could crown a divisional title, with Rushing Fall and Sistercharlie, both making the final starts of their accomplished careers, among the headliners. But their Chad Brown-trained stablemate, Uni, could forge her way to a second straight divisional title if she were to repeat in the Mile, against males. The Mile had one defection Thursday morning, when the British mare One Master was scratched, Breeders’ Cup officials confirmed, which would allow Order of Australia to get in from the also-eligible list.
Outsized success by a trainer or a jockey in the 14 Breeders’ Cup races to be run Friday and Saturday also could sway Eclipse Award voters.
Despite the pandemic, participation from overseas trainers is strong, with the likes of Aidan O’Brien and John Gosden once again supporting the event.
“I’ve been a passionate believer in it obviously, since we started at Hollywood Park,” Gosden, who won the Mile with Royal Heroine at the inaugural 1984 Breeders’ Cup, said on a recent teleconference. “It’s such a wonderful, wonderful international event. And if you ever have a horse capable of going there and belonging in a race, there’s nothing more than to run in a Breeders’ Cup.”
Those are among the senses of normalcy the Breeders’ Cup provides.
But this is not a normal Breeders’ Cup, not at all. The impact of the pandemic has caused the event to be held without fans for the first time, with only owners and those deemed essential to put on or report on the event allowed on the premises.
So it won’t be quite the same, not without fans from the world over, not without the great roar that goes up when the horses turn into the stretch. But the weather forecast is sublime. The sun will be shining bright on the old Kentucky home, with a high temperature of 70 degrees, ideal conditions for racing. And, as with baseball, basketball, and hockey, championships will be crowned. For 2020, that’ll do.