Breeders' Cup revisited: With 20-20 hindsight, some lessons going forward

I went back for a third helping of 2020 Breeders’ Cup replays and charts this week and came up with all the winners in retrospect – except for 73-1 shot Order of Australia in the BC Mile. Even retrospectively, I still expected him to lose.

Sometimes you throw up your hands, concede there’s little to be learned about where you went right and wrong during an intense handicapping and gambling experience like the two-day Breeders’ Cup. Order of Australia presents just such an instance. That’s the exception to the rule. It’s nearly always beneficial to revisit the experience, so let’s have a look back.

Apotheosis of American dirt racing

I won’t get bogged down regarding a dirt-track bias over the two days of the Breeders’ Cup. The inside might have been superior, especially Saturday, but there was no overwhelming bias regarding speed or position relative to the rail.

There was, however, a much bigger-picture bias: Horses trained hard enough to withstand the rigors of running exceedingly fast on dirt had a major edge. It takes not only elite talent but supreme fitness, hardness of muscle, bone, and spirit to win at the top level over a supercharged track like Keeneland’s played.

Bob Baffert embodies the heart of Southern California dirt training – work them hard, work them long, work them often. Sure, Baffert gets the cream of the crop when it comes to young dirt-route prospects, but that’s because his training methods – which demand a lot of an animal – maximize that talent in dirt routes.

Brad Cox was chatting to me a year or two ago during a morning at Fair Grounds and said something like this: “I try to train ’em like Baffert does.”

Of the seven Breeders’ Cup dirt races, Baffert and Cox won five – truly remarkable. Knicks Go in the Dirt Mile and Gamine in the Filly and Mare Sprint, especially, showed what an exceedingly fast, dead-fit horse can do on a lightning-fast track. How the horses from these two barns ran these two days is something I’ll keep in mind for future Breeders’ Cups.

Euros – learning to turn

Have the Europeans figured out which horses to send – or how to prepare the right horses – for major American turf sprints? It’s a one-year sample size, sure, but after overseas flailing in the Turf Sprint and during the first two editions of the Juvenile Turf Sprint, the success Euros had in those two races at Keeneland stood out.

Friday, Ubettabelieveit and Lipizzaner finished third and fourth in the Juvenile Turf Sprint, good showings both. Saturday, there was one European horse in the Turf Sprint, Glass Slippers, and she won it convincingly.

The issue for these overseas sprinters always has been a turn that comes up relatively soon after the start and with the field already traveling at high speed. This presents a night-versus-day experience for Europeans sprinters accustomed to running down straightaways, and before last weekend, it seemed like a good idea mainly ignoring the Euros in the Breeders’ Cup turf sprints.

Glass Slippers’s connections post-race specifically referenced the filly’s performance in spring 2019 over the tight-turning track at Chester, and I think more attention was paid this year – and will continue to be paid – to sending the right turf sprinters oversea, not merely the ones that have shown ability down the straight courses of Europe.

Question the obvious

I hated the BC Sprint because I liked Yaupon.

Maiden win, first-level allowance win, Amsterdam win over Basin in an age-restricted stakes, Chick Lang win over a horse named Double Grown in an age-restricted stakes. That’s all fine, but a 13-10 favorite facing older stakes horses for the first time in the Sprint? Kind of crazy.

The problem with this race is the rest of the field looked like a great undifferentiated mass of slightly underqualified participants, which led to Yaupon being massively overvalued – in great part because he wasn’t them. That is not a good reason to take a short price on a horse without a truly substantive edge.

Similar was the Distaff, which I believe I termed a “classic two-horse race.” As often as not, an on-paper battle between the “best” two horses fails to materialize. Note to self: Pick one of the two, try to beat the other.

Let price guide skepticism

I went into BC Friday an avowed supporter of two heavy favorites – Golden Pal in the Juvenile Turf Sprint and Jackie’s Warrior in the Juvenile. There was one huge difference between them: Golden Pal had already established himself as the best 2-year-old turf sprinter, while Jackie’s Warrior tried two turns for the first time.

I thought my reasons for supporting Jackie’s Warrior were sound: He’d cruised in a one-turn mile, he rated kindly for his jockey, and he clearly was “the fastest horse,” “a true man among boys,” I think I said.

He also was 4-5 facing 13 rivals! Even if you like a horse like this and believe they will succeed at a new thing, I think you have to let price rouse your skepticism. Going forward, I’ll always try and beat a horse at a price this short in a spot like this, regardless of how much I admire them. The worst thing that happens is you’re wrong about a 4-5 shot.

Related item: Princess Noor. Her Beyer Speed Figures were too slow to win the Juvenile Fillies, though she’d been posting eye-catching, open-lengths wins. It’s fine to support an “eye test” horse as value, but never back one as the favorite.

Wiseguy-ism run amok

Too much can be made about a horse gaining an edge because of pace dynamics. Sure, Fire At Will led on a slow pace winning the Pilgrim Stakes over Public Sector, but Public Sector finished 12th in the Juvenile Turf at 8-1 while Fire At Will won as a huge 30-1 overlay.