LEXINGTON, Ky. – This past Wednesday, upon the official release of the Breeders’ Cup pre-entries, eager handicappers and horsemen began analyzing past performances and other statistics in preparation for the two-day Breeders’ Cup.A day earlier, however, a group of eight men from America and Europe beat them to the punch, getting first crack at the pre-entries and analyzing the merits of the horses in the Breeders’ Cup at a meeting in Lexington. They didn’t game the system. Rather, they are the system – officially the Breeders’ Cup selection committee, the group responsible for determining which horses gain entry in oversubscribed fields.The committee, comprised of five North American racing secretaries and three official European handicappers, act much like the NCAA basketball committee that determines the at-large bids for its tournament. They, like their counterparts in the NCAA, pore over as much data as possible and pick whom they deem the top participants.“The object of the exercise is to put together the best possible field for the wagering public, and we all walk in with that in mind,” said committee member Ben Huffman, racing secretary at Keeneland and Churchill Downs.If a race doesn’t overfill, such as the Classic, which drew 10 pre-entries, the field is set without any input needed from the selection committee, with only post positions to be determined by draw on the Monday before the Breeders’ Cup. Races such as the Classic are the exception, not the rule. Ten of the 13 Breeders’ Cup races this year drew more pre-entries than starting positions.Even when a race overfills, half the maximum field size is determined by Breeders’ Cup rules, not by the committee. Automatically gaining entry are Win and You’re In Challenge race winners, and the remaining horses to complete half of the field are comprised of those who earned the most qualifying points with top finishes in U.S. graded stakes races.So, in the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, for instance, which along with the Dirt Mile is limited to a field of 12, down from the typical full gate of 14, four fillies garnered automatic spots by capturing Win and You’re In races, leaving two others to get in on points, thereby accounting for half of the 12-horse field.That left the committee to pick six horses among the remaining 14 pre-entries to complete the body of the pre-entry field, followed by a list of eight alternates, placed in a preferential order they established.One might say that it is in deep races like that that the committee members “earn their money,” though that would be wrong. This is not a paying job for the eight selection panel members. It offers only the perks that come along with being part of the Breeders’ Cup, such as being able to attend the event, said Tom Robbins, the longtime committee chair, who moderates the panel but does not select the participants. “It’s an honor, and they take it as such,” he said.In addition to Huffman, the panel’s racing secretaries are among the most well known in the industry: Steve Lym from Woodbine, P.J. Campo from Gulfstream Park, Martin Panza from the New York Racing Association, and Rick Hammerle from Santa Anita.The committee further relies on three official handicappers for overseas representation: Eric Le Guen from France, Garry O’Gorman from Ireland, and Phil Smith from Britain. They link up via video conference call with the North American members, who meet in the host Breeders’ Cup city.These Europeans aren’t handicappers in the American sense, where the word “handicapper” is synonymous with “horseplayer.” These foreign handicappers assign ratings to horses’ performances based on quantitative data and their subjective viewpoints.Smith said he and his British staff analyze graded and group stakes from around the world. So, a horse such as Triple Crown winner American Pharoah, he said, has a top rating of 131 on his scale, earned in the Haskell Invitational, followed by a step back in his most recent start, when he earned a 122 in for his runner-up finish in the Travers.Robbins, Huffman, and Smith all said the most challenging races for which the committee selects horses are the various 2-year-old races that overfill, due to the entrants having less-established form. These races might require more analysis and debate. At times, there is consensus among the committee members. Other times, voting takes place until a determination is reached.Like any selection committee, the Breeders’ Cup selection committee isn’t perfect. There are examples over the years of horses who were surprisingly snubbed by the committee, perhaps most famously in 1990, when Quiet American did not make the Classic field, leaving him little recourse but to run in the Grade 1 NYRA Mile instead, a race he won by 4 3/4 lengths.That Quiet American is the most famous Breeders’ Cup selection committee blunder – 25 years after it happened – speaks to how few potential winners it has overlooked over the years.An also-eligible list, now in place, also gives fringe horses a little better chance of starting if a scratch occurs.Ageless was able to make the field that way in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint when Free as a Bird was withdrawn, and she rallied to be fourth at 36-1 odds, falling just three-quarters of a length short of the victorious Bobby’s Kitten.This year’s committee choices won’t meet with full approval, either from the media or from the horsemen whose runners were not chosen. It is that way every year, and Huffman said he and other committee members have come to expect criticism as a part of the process.“We all take grief,” Huffman said. “We have thick skins anyway. We can take it.”