Florida trainers having trouble getting direct flights to the Breeders' Cup

MIAMI – It’s hard for a horse to earn a spot in a Breeders’ Cup race. If they are based in South Florida this year, it seems it is even harder to get them there.

Stormy Embrace won an expenses-paid berth in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint for a second year in a row by virtue of her victory in the Grade 2 Princess Rooney this past summer at Gulfstream Park. Trainer Kathleen O’Connell is planning on running her in the Breeders’ Cup again, but only if she can get her a direct flight to California, which is a bit problematic at the moment.

“Right now, the Breeders’ Cup people are telling me they have no flight out of Florida, that I have to put her on a van and take her all the way to Lexington to get her out there,” O’Connell said by phone from Monmouth Park on Wednesday. “And that’s just not fair, especially for a horse who won a Challenge race and has already earned a spot in the field. We’re only going if she can get a direct flight.”

O’Connell said she was able to fly Scandalous Act directly to California from South Florida when she ran her in the 2013 Juvenile Fillies at Santa Anita. But even that trip was no bargain, for her or her horse.

“I had to load her on the plane myself here at 5:30 in the morning, catch a flight to California immediately after, and unload her myself once she arrived,” O’Connell recalled.

Trainer Saffie Joseph said he is also still looking to make his own arrangements to get Pennsylvania Derby winner Math Wizard to California after being informed by the Breeders’ Cup it will not be providing a direct flight from this area.

“Right now I have no flight, but we’re going to talk to the Fed Ex people about providing one, especially since right now there are about five or six other horses from here planning to go out there for the Breeders’ Cup,” Joseph said.

As for Stormy Embrace, O’Connell said she has done well since her fourth-place finish last time out as the 2-5 favorite in the Sheer Drama Stakes after encountering a nightmarish trip following a slow beginning from the rail. The Sheer Drama is her only start since winning the Princess Rooney on June 28.

“That was the race from hell,” said O’Connell, referring to the Sheer Drama. “It’s the second year in a row that’s happened to her in that same race. But she’s training well and will have two more works here before the Breeders’ Cup. If we go.”