Hardest Core will enter Breeders' Cup Turf a fresh horse

As quickly as Hardest Core burst into the national spotlight with his Arlington Million win, is as fast as he disappeared from it. A bright blip on the radar screen.

But not to worry, Hardest Core is doing just fine. Back on the van he went after the Million and 13 hours later he was in his stall at Runnymede Farm in Unionville, Pa. Trainer Eddie Graham has him galloping up hills and around various farms while making plans to use the free pass to the Breeders’ Cup Turf that Hardest Core earned in the Million.

While many BC Turf hopefuls will be in action this weekend in the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic at Belmont Park and the John Henry Turf Championship at Santa Anita, Hardest Core will not be participating. He will go straight to the Breeders’ Cup.

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“It was an easy decision for me to make,” Graham said. “He’d had three races close enough and I’m not the kind of guy that likes to run them for the sake of running them. The owners let me make the decision, and actually everyone was happy to go right to the Breeders’ Cup. I go by the animal, not by what I want to do.”

Owners Greg Bentley and Rusty Carrier purchased Hardest Core for $210,000 out of Keeneland’s November breeding stock sale and turned him over to Graham, who trains a small stable of flat racers and steeplechasers. Gelded over the winter, Hardest Core has subsequently gone 3 for 3.

A 4-year-old son of Hard Spun, Hardest Core began the season with a third-level optional-claiming win at Parx in late June. Hardest Core then won the $50,000 Cape Henlopen Stakes at Delaware Park in mid-July and pulled off his Million stunner in mid-August. All three wins were decisive, and all came with little known rider Eriluis Vaz at the helm.

Graham, Bentley, and Carrier are from the steeplechase side of the fence and tend to do things their own way. The 11 weeks between the Million and Breeders’ Cup isn’t a big concern to Graham.

“I want to go to California with a fresh horse, not off a race four weeks ahead of time,” he said. “He’ll be plenty fit, I assure you.”

Graham, 43, pointed out he had run Dr. Skip the week before at Belmont off an 11-month layoff. Although Dr. Skip didn’t win the $75,000 Entenmann Memorial, he finished a good third in the 2 1/4-mile steeplechase.

Graham said Hardest Core came out of his Million win in fine shape but that it was a long journey to Chicago and back.

“He wasn’t tired the first few days, but then one morning he let me know that he was,” Graham said. “The 13-hour trip there, the race, and then the 13 hours back had maybe caught up with him a little.”

Although Hardest Core’s past performances don’t show any workouts since the Million, Graham said he breezed him up the hill at Joyce Slater’s Fat Chance Farms in Unionville last Monday, that he may breeze him there again this Monday, and that he could take him to Fair Hill for a timed workout the following week.

Hardest Core will fly to California the Tuesday of Breeders’ Cup week.