The breeding rights to Grade 1 winner Eight Rings, who is among the favorites for next week's Breeders' Cup Juvenile, have been acquired by the international Coolmore group. The outfit plans to stand the colt at its Ashford Stud in Kentucky upon his eventual retirement.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Trainer John Sadler sent out his first Breeders’ Cup runner in 1988, when he was just 32 years old, and even though he lost that year with the sprinter Olympic Prospect, he had to figure that first win would come soon.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Perhaps if Ollie’s Candy had a little more physical appeal, her status as a legit contender in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff would be easier to accept. Based on looks, she is just ordinary.

Or if her owners bred more than one or two mares a year, it might be easier to believe they somehow ended up with one of the top fillies in California, a filly they initially tried to sell. No one wanted her.

A horse is a horse, of course, of course – even when that horse is a graded stakes winner who is one of the favorites for a Breeders’ Cup race. So Jim and Susan Hill of Margaux Farm make sure that their stable star Totally Boss gets to act like the horse he is between races by coming back to the farm, a training method that has taken him to the threshold of a tilt at the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Thursday was a relatively quiet morning on the Breeders’ Cup front at Santa Anita, with only two potential starters turning in official works. But that will change quickly with at least a dozen or so Breeders’ Cup workers on the schedule here Friday and plenty more to follow throughout the remainder of the weekend.

The weather in Southern California remains picture-perfect – sunny, with temperatures in the high 50s when the track opens for training at 5 a.m., but quickly rising into the low 80s by the time the last horse is off the track at 10 a.m.

ARCADIA, Calif. - Walk In Marrakesh will have Frankie Dettori aboard when she starts as a longshot in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf at Santa Anita on Nov. 1, new trainer Ignacio Correas said on Thursday.

Dettori rode Walk In Marrakesh to a win in the Star Stakes at Sandown Park in England in July. 

Dettori, 48, is the regular rider of the star European filly Enable and has won a personal-best 18 Group 1 races this year, and 250 Group 1 or Grade 1 races in his career. The latest came aboard Star Catcher at Ascot, England, last Saturday.

The cup runneth over – as in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.

The $1 million race on Breeders’ Cup Friday drew 21 pre-entrants this week for the one-mile race in which 14 can start. At least a couple of excluded horses figure to find their way into the starting gate, however, since American Theorem, who was selected into the main body of the field, has the Juvenile as his first preference, and Encoder, another horse among the top 14, is expected to opt for the Juvenile Turf Sprint.

If those two defect, Billy Batts and Gear Jockey can get into the race.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Bricks and Mortar, the leading turf horse in the United States, is unlikely to face a leading rival when he starts at 1 1/2 miles for the first time in the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita.

Wednesday, Breeders’ Cup officials announced that 14 horses have been pre-entered for the BC Turf, the richest grass race in the United States. Bricks and Mortar also was pre-entered in the BC Mile, but trainer Chad Brown has said in recent weeks that the BC Turf is a primary goal.

As a four-time winner of the $2 million Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, trainer Bob Baffert certainly knows the type of colt it takes to win the race. In Eight Rings, Baffert believes he has a colt that can give him his record-tying fifth victory in the Juvenile.

“I think he’s a special colt,” said Baffert, whose four wins in the Juvenile are one shy of fellow Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas. “I’ve seen him do things in the mornings the good ones do. They don’t get tired, they do it effortlessly, he goes around there like nothing. He handles it well.”

ARCADIA, Calif. – Another gorgeous morning Wednesday at Santa Anita, where Omaha Beach was the marquee name on a work tab that included four other potential Breeders’ Cup starters.