Host of previous winners among 222 pre-entries for 43rd Breeders' Cup
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Led by eight returning winners from a year ago, two Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes winners, and a foreign line-up that numbers 75 strong, a total of 222 horses were pre-entered for the 14 Breeders’ Cup races worth $30 million in purse money to be held Oct. 30-31 at Keeneland.
Forever Young, last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic winner, heads the list of returning winners from 2025 at Del Mar as he seeks to become just the second horse to win the Classic twice. Tiznow accomplished the feat in 2000-01.
Other 2025 Breeders’ Cup winners looking to become repeat winners in the same race include Notable Speech (Mile), Ethical Diamond (Turf), and Shisospicy (Turf Sprint). Splendora, who won last year’s Filly and Mare Sprint, is expected to run this year in the Distaff, though she also is pre-entered in the Filly and Mare Sprint.
Super Corredora, last year’s Juvenile Fillies winner, is pre-entered in the Distaff. Cy Fair, last year’s Juvenile Turf Sprint winner, is pre-entered in the Turf Sprint. Gstaad, last year’s Juvenile Turf winner, was pre-entered in the Mile, but trainer Aidan O’Brien, in an interview with British television racing analyst Matt Chapman, indicated that Gstaad would not travel to America from Ireland.
Gstaad was one of 16 horses pre-entered by Aidan O’Brien, though the Ireland-based trainer told Chapman he also was unlikely to ship Minnie Hauk, winner of the Group 1 British Champions Fillies and Mares Stakes last Saturday, for the Turf.
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O’Brien, who is tied with Bob Baffert for most wins by a trainer in the Breeders’ Cup with 21, could still bring as many as 14, a powerhouse group that includes Diamond Necklace (pre-entered in Turf and Filly and Mare Turf), the four-time Group 1 winner Precise (Filly and Mare Turf), True Love (Mile), and three-time Group 1 winner Sun Goddess (Juvenile Fillies Turf). The 14 horses that O’Brien could start have won a combined 27 Group 1 races.
In numbers, trainer Mark Casse leads the North American-based trainers with 10 pre-entrants, topped by Nitrogen (Distaff). Wesley Ward has eight, though four of them are in the Turf Sprint. Baffert, Brad Cox, Chad Brown, and Todd Pletcher each have six pre-entrants apiece.
This will be the 43rd Breeders’ Cup event, a series that began in 1984 with just seven races designed to be year-end championship events. This will be the fourth time Keeneland, in Lexington, Ky., will host the event, having previously done so in 2015, 2020, and 2022.
Wednesday’s announcement of the pre-entries completes the first phase in determining the fields for the Breeders’ Cup. The first five races, all for 2-year-olds, will be held on Oct. 30, followed by nine Breeders’ Cup races for 3-year-olds and up to be run Oct. 31.
Twelve of the 14 races are limited to 14 starters and in those races four also-eligibles may be carded at time of entry. Fields for the Juvenile Turf Sprint and the Dirt Mile are limited to 12 starters with the possibility of six also-eligibles carded.
In races that oversubscribe at time of pre-entry, the first seven horses are selected into the body of the race either by having won a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race or accrued the most points in graded stakes. The next seven horses are selected by the Breeders’ Cup panel of directors and racing secretaries. In the Juvenile Turf Sprint and Dirt Mile, those numbers are six and six.
Further, in races that oversubscribe, the panel creates a preference list, in order, of horses who would get into a race should there be a defection by entry time. Final entries are made Monday morning, and the post-position draw will be held Monday afternoon at the Keeneland sales pavilion.
Nine of the 14 races were oversubscribed at pre-entry time, though 33 horses were pre-entered in two races. Breeders’ Cup announced that two of the pre-entrants, Japan’s Ecoro Reve (Sprint/Turf Sprint) and England-based Almaqam (Turf) have been withdrawn.
Forever Young, one of eight Japan-based runners in this year’s Breeders’ Cup, was one of 11 horses pre-entered in the $7 million Classic. He won two BC Challenge races, including the Jockey Club Gold Cup on Sept. 18 at Belmont Park, and remained at Belmont until shipping to Keeneland on Tuesday.
Among his expected challengers in the Classic are Sovereignty and Golden Tempo, the winners of the last two Kentucky Derbies and Belmont Stakes. The last time two Kentucky Derby winners competed in the BC Classic was 1991, when Unbridled, the 1990 Derby and BC Classic winner, finished third while Strike the Gold, the 1991 Derby winner finished fifth. In 1987, Ferdinand, the 1986 Kentucky Derby winner, beat 1987 Derby winner Alysheba by a nose in a classic Classic.
Sovereignty was scratched from last year’s Classic after entries due to a fever. He has run just three times this year, winning the Grade 1 Whitney at Saratoga in August. In early September, Sovereignty developed an abscess in his left hind foot that forced him to miss the Jockey Club Gold Cup.
He has been working regularly – albeit slowly – in Saratoga, but his trainer, Bill Mott, was happy with his most recent workout.
Mott trains both Sovereignty and Knightsbridge for Godolphin. Knightsbridge has put forth sterling back-to-back efforts, winning the Grade 3 Monmouth Cup by 10 1/4 lengths in July and the Grade 1 Pacific Classic at 1 1/4 miles by 6 1/4 lengths in August. Knightsbridge was pre-entered in both the Classic and Dirt Mile, with first preference given to the Classic.
Both horses arrived at Keeneland from Saratoga on Tuesday and are scheduled to have their final workouts this weekend. Horses may only enter one race, so a decision has to be made by Monday in which race Knightsbridge will be entered.
Knightsbridge was one of five horses pre-entered in the Classic who also were pre-entered in the Dirt Mile, a race that had 11 of its 16 pre-entrants pre-entered in other races. Further Ado, Preakness winner Napoleon Solo, Forged Steel, and T O Password were each pre-entered in the Classic and Dirt Mile. Forged Steel and T O Password have the Dirt Mile listed as their first preference.
Hymn, T Kraft, Built, Iron Man Cal, Moonlight, and Lord Fons were pre-entered in the Dirt Mile and Breeders’ Cup Sprint, the connections of all five listing the Sprint as their first preference.
The Dirt Mile horses who were pre-entered in only one race include Chunk of Gold, Full Serrano, the 2024 winner of this race at Del Mar, Bracket Buster, Coal Battle, and Owen Almighty. Ironically, the latter three horses did not make it into the body of the field and will need some of those cross-entered horses to run elsewhere.
Among the horses solely entered in the Classic is Magnitude, who beat Forever Young in the Dubai World Cup and Sovereignty in the Stephen Foster. He will attempt in the Classic to rebound from a sixth-place finish in the Whitney. Magnitude will be ridden by two-time Classic winner Flavien Prat as Jose Ortiz, his regular rider, has opted to stay with Kentucky Derby and Belmont winner Golden Tempo.
Phileas Fogg, the 10-length winner of the Grade 2 Suburban, was pre-entered in the Classic even though he is dealing with a sore left front foot. He is not scheduled to ship from Belmont to Lexington until Monday.
The Breeders’ Cup has been held in Southern California for the last three years and, to accommodate NBC, the Classic was run in the middle of the card. This year, the Classic returns to its rightful position as the final race on the card.
In announcing the pre-entries, Breeders’ Cup also announced the race order for the two-day event. It did juggle a few races from its original schedule, as the Dirt Mile moves from race 4 to race 6 while the Filly and Mare Sprint moves from race 8 to race 4 on that day’s card, which begins with a maiden and two allowance races. The Sprint, which features the exciting 3-year-old speedster Englishman, moves from race 6 to race 8, which means it will be televised on NBC, which will broadcast the final five BC races on the program on its flagship station.
Friday’s card and the first seven races on Saturday will be broadcast on FanDuel TV, USA Network, and the streaming service Peacock.
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