A record number of pre-entries, an overflow field for the event’s richest race, and the potential for at least two unprecedented feats highlight the 35th Breeders’ Cup on Nov. 2-3 at Churchill Downs, for which pre-entries were announced on Wednesday.

There were 221 individual horses pre-entered in the event’s 14 races, with 25 cross-entered in a second race, bringing the total pre-entries to 246, eclipsing the previous records of 201 individual horses and 229 total pre-entries, both set at Santa Anita in 2014.

Breeders’ Cup plans to offer a slate of new bets for its revamped two-day event scheduled for Nov. 2-3 at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky., including head-to-head wagers and a jackpot-style bet requiring bettors to select the first five finishers in order, the organization announced on Tuesday night.

Churchill Downs

Weather: Clear

Temp: 44

Track: Fast

Turf: Firm

LOUISVILLE, KY. - The grass course was open for business during training hours at Churchill Downs on Tuesday, but the only trainer opting to take advantage of the opportunity was Ian Wilkes, who sent out his Breeders’ Cup Turf hopeful, the Brazilian-raced and -bred Quarteto de Cordas, to breeze in company shortly before 10 a.m.

ELMONT, N.Y. – Grade 1 winner Sadler’s Joy worked five furlongs in 1:01.72 on Monday morning over the Belmont Park main track in preparation for a start in the $4 million Breeders’ Cup Turf on Nov. 3 at Churchill Downs.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Monday was pretty much a carbon copy of the previous morning weather-wise, clear and cold, with the temperature a crisp 36 when the track opened for training at 5:30 a.m. and frost warnings up for the region until 9 a.m.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Trainer Jonathan Thomas wanted to see how Catholic Boy handles the Churchill Downs surface and give him a stamina-enhancing work two weeks out from the Breeders' Cup Classic, and it was thumbs up all around after the Travers winner breezed an easy five furlongs in 1:02.41 under the lights early Sunday morning.

After joining the 5,000-win club Saturday at Belmont Park, Javier Castellano hopped a plane and flew to Louisville that evening to be on hand when the racetrack opened for training at 5:30 a.m. to guide Catholic Boy through the important work.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Unbeaten in four starts, Catalina Cruiser will start as the expected favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3 with a growing reputation in the nation’s older horse division.

On Sunday, Catalina Cruiser had his most strenuous workout of October, a seven-furlong exercise in 1:26.60 at Santa Anita. Trainer John Sadler clocked the 4-year-old colt galloping out a mile in “1:39 and change.”

After a five-furlong workout next Saturday, Catalina Cruiser will be sent to Kentucky for the biggest race of his career.

Two weeks in advance of the Breeders' Cup Distaff, one of its major contenders, Monomoy Girl, turned in her penultimate and most serious work on Saturday at host track Churchill Downs.

ARCADIA, Calif. – Battle of Midway will not defend his title in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 3 at Churchill Downs, trainer Jerry Hollendorfer said Saturday morning at Santa Anita.

Instead, Battle of Midway will run in the $75,000 Comma to the Top Stakes at Santa Anita on Oct. 28. That race is a two-turn mile like last year's BC Dirt Mile at Del Mar. This year's Dirt Mile is around one turn.

But one turn or two, the decision, Hollendorfer said, was made to give Battle of Midway "in theory an easier race."

ELMONT, N.Y. – Pure Sensation, beaten one length in each of the past two runnings of the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, will not run in that race this year, according to trainer Christophe Clement.

Clement said Pure Sensation did not come out of his third-place finish in the Belmont Turf Sprint Invitational as well as he would have liked, and the 7-year-old gelding will be given time off.

“If I want him to last, I need to look after him,” Clement said.

Clement is still planning to run Disco Partner in the Turf Sprint, provided the turf course is not soft.