A few lingering Breeders’ Cup thoughts:
** Allow me to echo the widespread praise for the job Del Mar did hosting the Breeders’ Cup. Logistically, everything came off without an obvious hitch. Moreover, the setting is simply gorgeous, so much so that I can’t imagine any racing person who was there on that sun-splashed Breeders’ Cup Saturday wanting to be anywhere else in the world.
Breeders’ Cup telecast (C-)
The main track featured a dead rail both days. The on-air commentators made no mention of the bias until just before the final race, the Classic, was run. It was only then that Jerry Bailey and Randy Moss pointed out that speed had not been holding. They still never picked up the real story that if you raced on the inside part of the track, you were finished.
Peter Miller (A+)
DEL MAR, Calif. – The victory by Gun Runner in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Saturday left no doubt as to the Horse of the Year and champion older dirt male for 2017, and while several other Eclipse Award divisions were decided over the 13 Breeders’ Cup races Friday and Saturday at Del Mar, a good number are still as murky as the fog that can roll in off the Pacific Ocean here, leaving voters with some potentially difficult choices.
On paper, there aren’t many similarities between the young Rushing Fall, who won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf going a route on the lawn, and Roy H, an older gelding who won the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on dirt.
The same goes for New York-bred Bar of Gold, who got her dark nose down on the line to win the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint in a major upset, and the flashy Great Britain-born, French-based Talismanic, who prevailed in the marathon Breeders’ Cup Turf.
DEL MAR, Calif. – November will be a rebuilding month for prominent California trainer John Sadler.
Last Friday, Sadler had two leading hopes in Breeders’ Cup races at Del Mar, but sustained disappointing results. Accelerate finished ninth of 10 at odds of 7-2 in the BC Dirt Mile. Stellar Wind was last of eight at 3-1 in the BC Distaff.
Wagering on the 13 races of the Breeders’ Cup this year, held on Friday and Saturday at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club in Del Mar, Calif., rose for the second straight year, with both years showing the strongest gains in the pools for multi-race wagers, according to data collected from Equibase charts.
The pinnacle of the late Edward P. Evans’s experience with the Breeders’ Cup came when Saint Liam, a horse he bred, rallied four wide down the Belmont stretch to win the 2005 Classic.
The Virginia horseman died in December 2010, and his Spring Hill Farm’s roster was dispersed the following year to a record-setting reception at the Keeneland September and November sales, but this year’s Breeders’ Cup results were still covered with his fingerprints.
History has shown that a Breeders’ Cup winner sometimes can be bought cheaply, but this year’s event proved that it often pays to pay up.
The average sale price for this year’s seven Breeders’ Cup winners to change hands at public auction was $674,375, up significantly from last year’s event, when 10 winners averaged $296,632. The spike in average price was largely thanks to a pair of seven-figure purchases out of the 2016 Keeneland September yearling sale.
