DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainer Charlie Appleby’s perfect Breeders’ Cup record is on the line when Masar starts Friday in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf.

Okay, so Appleby, the England- and Dubai-based private trainer for Godolphin, has had only one Breeders’ Cup starter: Outstrip, who won this very race in 2013. By Friday night, Appleby either will be 1 for 2 or will have joined Buff Bradley as the only 2 for 2 Breeders’ Cup trainers.

DEL MAR, Calif. – A single race supposedly promotes greater fitness than a handful of morning workouts, but there are plenty of trainers who will be looking to buck that conventional wisdom when they send out horses off substantial layoffs in the Breeders’ Cup.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Rushing Fall and Significant Form spent the late summer and early fall trading victories.

After Rushing Fall won a maiden race Sept. 16 at Belmont Park, Significant Form scored a smart win in the Grade 3 Miss Grillo Stakes on Oct. 1 at Belmont Park. Rushing Fall followed with a dazzling win in the Grade 3 Jessamine Stakes on Oct. 11 at Keeneland.

KEY CONTENDERS

Accelerate, by Lookin At Lucky
Last 3 Beyers: 110-109-86

◗ His two best races have been since blinkers were added and he switched to jockey Victor Espinoza, and he loves this track.

◗ He is seeking to give Sadler his first Breeders’ Cup win.

Cupid, by Tapit
Last 3 Beyers: 99-99-108

DEL MAR, Calif. – The Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, like real estate, comes down to location, location, location.

This year’s race will be run at Del Mar, where the race is one lap around the oval. Next year, for example, the race will be at Churchill Downs, where it is around one turn. The dynamics of the race make a difference, and no horse may be impacted by the scenario more than Practical Joke, the top-class 3-year-old who is unbeaten in five starts around one turn and winless in five starts around two.

Del Mar
Weather: Showery
Temp.: 63
Main track: Fast
Turf: Firm

DEL MAR, Calif . – It was easy to tell the 2017 Breeders’ Cup was only three days away after spending the early morning hours Tuesday at Del Mar, with Breeders’ Cup  contenders just about everywhere one looked from the moment the main track opened at 5:30 a.m. until Bullards Alley walked off the turf course four hours later.

DEL MAR, Calif. – Show time for Breeders’ Cup 2017, finally.

It took a long while for the Breeders’ Cup to reach the beach, as Del Mar track president Joe Harper acknowledged this week at the post draw.

“We’ve been looking to get this since 1984,” said Harper, referring to the first year of the Breeders’ Cup. “We had to build a new grandstand, new racing facilities, do a lot of work. Thirty-four years later, it’s here. And we’re going to have a great time.”

DEL MAR, Calif. – Arrogate, the defending race winner in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, will leave from post 1 in this year’s race at Del Mar on Saturday after drawing the inside in a field of 11 on Monday, a situation his jockey, Mike Smith, said will cause him to be aggressive leaving the gate.

“Like in the Travers,” he said, referring to the 2016 Travers Stakes, the race that announced Arrogate to the world. “I’ll go get a position leaving there.”

DEL MAR, Calif. – When the trainer Jonathan Thomas sends Catholic Boy out in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf on Friday he’ll follow along the trail well worn by his old boss, trainer Todd Pletcher.

Pletcher is walking quite a way up that path. He’s had 128 Breeders’ Cup runners. Catholic Boy will be Thomas’s first.