DEL MAR, Calif. – No racing circuit on Earth is safe if Rebel’s Romance comes to town.

Already this year, Rebel’s Romance has won stakes in Qatar in February, Dubai in March, Hong Kong in May, and Germany in September.

Have talent, will travel is his motto.

DEL MAR, Calif. – With a foundation established in 2023, Cogburn has risen to the top of the American turf sprint division this year with three emphatic wins at Churchill Downs, Saratoga, and Kentucky Downs.

Now, near the end of his racing career and before he is sent to stud in Kentucky, there is the little matter of a mad dash around a turn in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint at five furlongs at Del Mar on Saturday.

A blazingly fast 5-year-old, Cogburn may simply scoot clear early and dare his 11 rivals to keep pace, or try to catch him late.

DEL MAR, Calif. – War Like Goddess makes her fourth consecutive Breeders’ Cup appearance in Saturday’s Grade 1, $2 million Filly and Mare Turf at 1 3/8 miles.

A close third as the favorite in the 2021 Filly and Mare Turf over this course and distance, War Like Goddess faced the boys in the Turf the following two years, placing third and seventh, respectively.

DEL MAR, Calif. – When horseplayers think about Chad Brown, they often think green.

It’s true that Brown sends out one quality turf horse after another to pluck major stakes races across the country, but he’s also won the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint on three occasions, including the last two editions with Goodnight Olive.

Goodnight Olive was a challenge for Brown. Brilliant, but somewhat brittle, Brown nursed her through two bilateral ankle surgeries to go back to back on racing’s biggest stage.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Maybe they saved the best for last after all at Breeders’ Cup 41.

The $1 million Dirt Mile will be the last of 14 Breeders’ Cup races run over two days – and the last of 12 races run Saturday at Del Mar. It’s arguably the best betting race of the weekend.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Since the start of this millennium, two winners of the 2000 Guineas in England have started in the Breeders’ Cup Mile. Kameko, a modest Guineas winner who was far from a standout, finished a lackluster seventh at Keeneland in 2022. Rock of Gibraltar, a great miler, finished second at Arlington 20 years earlier, beaten at odds-on by a bad trip.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Two noses kept Forever Young from becoming the first Japan-based horse to win the Kentucky Derby six months ago. Off slowly in a 20-horse field and bumped late from a lugging-in rival surely had to be the difference between winning and losing, right?

“I believe the bumping didn’t much influence the result,” Yoshito Yahagi, trainer of Forever Young, said this week.

DEL MAR, Calif. – After Giant’s Causeway took a tough, narrow loss to Tiznow in the 2000 Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs, his 31-year-old trainer Aidan O’Brien surely imagined, even if he’d hesitate to admit it now, that before too long he’d win a Classic.

One year later, O’Brien saddled his first Breeders’ Cup winner, Johannesburg, who transitioned from European turf racing to American dirt and won the Juvenile. O’Brien has since won 17 more Breeders’ Cup races.

Impulse Buy will be looking to back up a double-digit maiden win with a stakes victory Saturday, when she starts in the $150,000 Tempted at the Belmont meet at Aqueduct.

The one-turn mile for 2-year-old fillies is one of four stakes on an 11-race card that has a special first post of 11:20 a.m. Eastern on Breeders’ Cup Saturday.

“We thought this was the next step distance-wise,” trainer Rodolphe Brisset said.

The Tempted is one of the card’s three stakes for 2-year-olds, alongside the $150,000 Nashua and $135,000 Stewart Manor.

DEL MAR, Calif. – A minor stakes winner in 2023, Sacred Wish nearly won a graded stakes this summer when she was beaten a neck in the Grade 3 Matchmaker Stakes at Monmouth Park.

An elusive win at that level may occur in Saturday’s Grade 3 Goldikova Stakes for fillies and mares at a mile on turf at Del Mar.

But it will not be easy.

The $300,000 race drew a solid field 11 and is part of the undercard of the Breeders’ Cup program.