Breeders' Cup Turf: Ombudsman's defection changes complexion

Earlier this summer he supposedly was on for the Breeders’ Cup Turf. Later this summer, and even earlier in October, the Breeders’ Cup Turf was off if Ombudsman ran in the Champion Stakes on Oct. 17 at Ascot. He did run and won the Champion like breaking sticks, but in post-race comments, the door cracked open again for BC Turf start. And on Monday, Ombudsman’s co-trainer John Gosden, according to published reports overseas, confirmed the Keeneland trip was on – until it wasn’t.

After being pre-entered, Ombudsman on Wednesday was taken out of the Turf, leaving a hole at the top of the penultimate race of the two-day Breeders’ Cup meeting. Ombudsman would’ve been favored to win the $5 million Turf, a 1 1/2-mile race run around three turns, but in his absence, another overseas horse, the 3-year-old filly Diamond Necklace, probably inherits that role.

Aidan O’Brien trains Diamond Necklace, and O’Brien in 2015, in the first Keeneland Breeders’ Cup, won the Turf with the 3-year-old filly Found. Found had finished ninth in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, but Diamond Necklace, who started her career with six wins, checked in a fine third in the Arc, run Oct. 4.

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Also pre-entered in the Turf was the second horse home in the Arc, the evidently indefatigable Bay City Roller, who returned two weeks later to finish third behind Ombudsman in the Champion and is back for more at Keeneland.

O’Brien has two others among the 14 horses selected into the Turf field: Benvenuto Cellini, a mercurial 3-year-old most recently ninth in the Arc, and Minnie Hauk, who won the British Champions Day Fillies and Mares on Oct. 17 but is uncertain to make the trip to Keeneland.

Last year’s upset Turf winner, Ethical Diamond, will be a much shorter price this time around, and he once again faces the mare Tiffany, who shipped from England and beat Ethical Diamond in the Kentucky Turf Cup at Kentucky Downs.

The other overseas horses selected into the field are Hotazhell, who posted a massive upset winning the 1 1/4-mile Irish Champion; Deep Monster, an 8-year-old Japan-based horse who reached the zenith of his career this year when sent abroad to race; and Survie, the 5-year-old mare who shipped to Saratoga and in August won a major North American 1 1/2-mile turf contest, the Christophe Clement.

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Minaret Station, second in the Clement and winner earlier this month of the Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont, heads the North American pre-entrants. Burnham Square delivered an electric performance capturing the Elkhorn Stakes, a 1 1/2-mile grass race in April at Keeneland, but ran poorly in the Kentucky Turf Cup. Test Score tries 1 1/2 miles for the first time.

Eccentric has a spot in the Turf field but probably runs instead in the Filly and Mare Turf, which would pave the way for Irish Oaks winner Johanna Walsh to make the field, while Ombudsman’s defection would let Lambourn – an O’Brien-trained pacemaker – into the field.

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