The two-time European Group 1 winner Goliath is scheduled to start in the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Turf at Del Mar on Nov. 1. It will be an expensive venture.
To start in the BC Turf at 1 1/2 miles, the richest grass race in the United States, Goliath must be made eligible to the Breeders’ Cup program with a $200,000 supplemental fee by Oct. 20, the day pre-entries are due. The pre-entry and entry fees add another $125,000.
Despite a perfect record in three starts, Ultimate Love may be overlooked in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf on Oct. 31 at Del Mar, if given a chance in the division’s richest race of the year.
Ultimate Love did not start in a leading graded stakes in the division at Aqueduct, Keeneland, or Santa Anita last weekend. She is not a high-profile runner from Europe.
La Wally is an improving sort who will head into the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies on Oct. 31 at Del Mar off a runner-up finish to the race’s early favorite, Explora.
The pair met in the Oak Leaf last Saturday at Santa Anita.
“We thought she ran well,” said Mark Glatt, who trains La Wally for Muir Hut Stables. “We didn’t think she had the best trip in the world and so we were a little bit disappointed with it, but she came back well and at the moment we are going to point towards the Breeders’ Cup.”
ETOBICOKE, Ontario – During his four-win day last Sunday, Rafael Hernandez made his way to the top of the Woodbine jockey standings, with about a third of the meet remaining.
Hernandez has a 97-95 lead in wins over apprentice Pietro Moran, who had led the standings since the meet began in late April. Not far back in third with 88 wins is last year’s leading rider, Sahin Civaci, who won three races on Sunday.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Five of the seven horses entered in Friday’s New York-bred, first-level allowance turf sprint feature at Aqueduct come out of the same race run here on Sept. 14. It would be hard to argue that among that quintet, Van Vollenhoven, who finished fourth, had the most difficult trip.
ARCADIA, Calif. – The $2 pick six is in trouble this fall at Santa Anita.
Pick six handle the first two weeks of the meet plummeted 50 percent from the first two weeks of the 2024 autumn meet – from $1.26 million to less than $639,000.
At age 9, you’d expect a racehorse, particularly one as accomplished as Khaadem, to take raceday activities calmly in stride, old hat, perhaps setting a good example for the younger horses in the field.
Hardly. Khaadem is quirky, to put it mildly. The mercurial gelding is known to act up in the paddock, to be bad at the starting gate, and generally to keep his handlers on their toes.
“He’s been a strange character, but a lovable one,” trainer Charlie Hills said.
The prep races are done for the vast majority of candidates for the 2025 Breeders’ Cup. But not for Lovesick Blues, whose trainer Librado Barocio is planning on using a 6 1/2-furlong statebred handicap on the downhill turf course at Santa Anita on Saturday as a stepping-stone to the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Sprint.
A New York-bred won the first American Grade 1 turf race of 2025, and a New York-bred won the most recent American Grade 1 turf race. When it comes to the Breeders’ Cup Mile, a late-season surge is the way to go.
When New York-bred Spirit of St Louis won the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf in January, New York-bred Rhetorical was several months away from his 2025 debut. Spirit of St Louis after winning the Grade 1 Turf Classic in May steadily lost his edge and now won’t race again until 2026.
The always-muddled picture for the five-furlong Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint, which traditionally draws an overflow cast, began to clear up over the weekend when five stakes that could produce starters were run in North America.
